Technostress Among Health Professionals – A Multilevel Model and Group Comparisons between Settings and Professions

ABSTRACT

Objective

Health organizations increasingly digitize. However, studies reveal contradictory findings regarding the impact of healthcare information technology on health professionals. Therefore, the aim of this study is to describe the prevalence of technostress among health professionals and elaborate on the influencing factors.

Participants

A secondary analysis was conducted utilizing cross-sectional data from the study, “Work-related stress among health professionals in Switzerland”, which included 8,112 health professionals from 163 health organizations in Switzerland.

Methods

ANOVA for group comparisons followed by post-hoc analyses, along with a Multilevel Model to identify influencing factors for technostress ranging from “0” (never/almost never) to “100” (always), were conducted.

Results

Health professionals experienced moderate technostress (mean 39.06, SD 32.54). Technostress differed between settings (p <.001) and health professions (p < .001). The model explains 18.1% of the variance with fixed effects, or 24.7% of the variance with fixed and random effects. Being a physician (β = 12.96), a nurse (β = 6.49), or the presence of an effort-reward-imbalance, increased technostress most (β = 6.11). A professional with no professional qualification (β = −7.94) showed the most reduction.

Conclusion

Health professionals experience moderate technostress. However, decision-makers should consider the cognitive and social aspects surrounding digitalization, to reach a beneficial and sustainable level of usage.

KEYWORDS:

• technostress
• healthcare professionals
• multilevel model
• healthcare information technology
• HIT

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the organizations as well as the health professionals for their participation. Additionally, we thank Dr. Reto Bürgin, who shared his expertise in statistical analysis with us.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.