Assessing the impact of workaholism and work engagement on medical university employee stress and satisfaction levels

Abstract

Background Workaholism (WH) is related with high mental trouble and physical objections, low employment and family fulfillment, and low occupation execution; however, work commitment is related with job and life satisfaction. This study aimed to assess the impact of WH and work engagement (WE) on medical university employee job stress and satisfaction. Methods This descriptive analytical study was conducted on workers employed in medical universities using validated questionnaires for data collection. The sample size was 330, from which 305 responded with completed questionnaire. The employees were the direct workers of different accessible medical universities in Karachi, Pakistan. The employee enrolment and distribution of the questionnaire was performed using non-probability convenient sampling. The Brief Job Questionnaire (BJQ), Dutch Work Addiction Scale (DUWAS) and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) were used to assess the impact of job stress on job satisfaction and WE. The data was analyzed by applying descriptive statistics, Spearman correlation and regression analysis. A p-value of ≤ 0.05 was taken as significant. Results The study consisted of 117 (38.4%) male and 188 (61.6%) female participants; the mean age of participating employee was 28.50 ± 6.192. The mean score for WE was 3.78 ± 0.467, that of WH was 3.42 ± 0.559, for JS was 4.29 ± 0.400, whereas JSF was 3.10 ± 0.591. A positive correlation was observed between job stress, WH and WE. WH had a strong correlation with job stress and weak correlation with job satisfaction and performance. A significant difference was observed between WE and WH among males and females. Conclusions The study presented with a significant effect of job satisfaction with WH and WE with job stress. Hence, indicating the importance of social skills and WE with fellow employees to increase the work productivity and performance. However, in case of over work and WH, an increase of job stress is inevitable.

The prevalence of workaholism: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…The present study's estimated prevalence suggests that roughly 1 in 7 might be affected with workaholism. This indicates that workaholism is a prevalent issue which is a concern as it is well known that workaholism takes a heavy toll on people's health and wellbeing (Robinson et al, 2006;Schaufeli et al, 2008a;Andreassen et al, 2013aAndreassen et al, , 2016Andreassen et al, , 2018aHaar and Roche, 2013;Matsudaira et al, 2013;Shimazu et al, 2015;Clark et al, 2016;Salanova et al, 2016;Yang et al, 2020;Balducci et al, 2021;Galdino et al, 2021;Chang et al, 2022;Cheng and Gu, 2022;Sarfaraz et al, 2022).…”

“…As for psychosocial correlates, workaholism is positively associated with work-family conflicts (Andreassen et al, 2013a;Chang et al, 2022) and partners' marital disaffection (Robinson et al, 2006). In terms of organizational outcomes many studies attest to positive associations between workaholism and negative organizational outcomes such as low job-satisfaction (Haar and Roche, 2013), job-stress (Sarfaraz et al, 2022) and work-related accidents (Andreassen et al, 2018a).…”

Workaholism and quality of work-life: a psychosocial pathway to brain-drain syndrome

“…The dynamics of work and its nature have been extensively studied, due to modifications in the workplace environment, business and susceptibility to work conditions (Sarfaraz et al , 2022). It is important to point out that the qualities of the workplace undoubtedly play a notable role in the experiences of employees in a work environment.…”

Counterintuitive consequences of COVID-19 on healthcare workers: A meta-analysis of the relationship between work engagement and job satisfaction

“…Work engagement (WE) and job satisfaction (JS) are among the variables affected by this challenging context. For example, a positive link between WE and JS of healthcare professionals (Lin et al, 2020 ; Ng et al, 2021 ; Sarfaraz et al, 2022 ) turned negative or nonsignificant in the ongoing COVID-19 process (Gimenez-Espert et al, 2020 ; Stover, 2020 ). World Health Organization ( 2022 ) calls for nation-states to take adequate measures to study and struggle the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers, which are the most adversely affected community of professionals in the pandemic.…”