Impact of work and personal life conciliation problems on healthcare workers

ABSTRACT

Work life balance, a significant issue in the healthcare sector, recognizes that individuals are engaged in several tasks in their private and professional lives. Literature highlights the harmful consequences of conflicts between personal and professional life for organizations and workers. This study investigates the prevalence of work life balance problems and presence of psychosocial work factors and analyzes their impact on health complaints in the Portuguese healthcare sector. A cross-sectional study of 640 healthcare professionals was conducted using two data collection instruments: INSAT (Inquérito Saúde e Trabalho), a health and work survey to assess psychosocial work factors, and the Portuguese version of the Nottingham Health Profile that evaluates the subjective physical, emotional, and social aspects of health. The data show that healthcare professionals have a very high prevalence of work life balance problems and are exposed to several psychosocial risk factors including high demands and work intensity, working hours, emotional demands, and work characteristics. These experiences are related to professionals’ health revealing a state of emotional vulnerability. Thus, Portuguese health organizations should formulate appropriate workplace policy to reduce work life conflict and enable employees to be more effective in their work and other roles.

KEYWORDS:

• Work life balance
• workers health
• psychosocial risk factors
• healthcare professionals
• occupational health

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Carla Fonte

Carla Fonte Associate Professor at Faculty of Human and Social Sciences /University Fernando Pessoa. Has a PhD in Psychology at the University of Minho, Master in Psychology in University of Porto and degree in Psychology also in University of Minho. Specialist Psychologist in Clinical and Health Psychology and Psychotherapy acknowledged by the Order of Portuguese Psychologists.

Carla Barros

Carla Barros is an Associate Professor at Fernando Pessoa University, and lecturer at the undergraduate/master degree in Psychology. PhD in Psychology at the University of Porto were also completed the Master in Work and Organizational Psychology and the degree in Psychology. She holds the title of Specialist Psychologist in Occupational Health Psychology, acknowledged by the Order of Portuguese Psychologists.

Pilar Baylina

Pilar Baylina has an Environmental Engineering Master degree, a Chemical Engineering Bachelor degree from Engineering Faculty of Porto University, and a PhD in Public Health – Policies, Management and Health Administration from the New University of Lisbon. She has been Professor at the Health School – Polytechnic Institute of Porto.

Sónia Alves

Sónia Pimentel Alves is a clinical psychologist. She completed his master’s degree in Clinical Psychology (Cognitive–Behavioral and Systemic) in University of Coimbra, his post-graduation in Cognitive-Narrative Psychotherapy and his degree in Psychology (Health Psychology) in University of Porto. She is Assistant at Fernando Pessoa University. Director of the Pedagogical Clinic of Psychology at Fernando Pessoa University.