Early Career South African Occupational Therapists’ Perceptions of Person–Environment Fit in Work–Life Areas That Influence Work Stress

Abstract

Introduction: Poor fit between the work environment and work expectations is associated with high levels of workplace‐related stress. Work stress in occupational therapy has been attributed to the nature of the profession and various other workplace‐related factors. Workplace‐related stress leading to burnout has been found to be higher in early career occupational therapists with less than 5 years of experience. This study explored workplace factors that result in poor person–work environment fit in six work–life areas in South African early career occupational therapists.Methods: A descriptive electronic survey design was used to access a sample of South African 261 occupational therapists with 2–5 years of work experience. The Area of Work–Life Survey (AWS) considers six work–life areas: control, workload, community, rewards, values, and fairness, which were used to collect data. Data were analysed to determine low, moderate, and high work environment fit for workplace factors including employment setting, field of practice, years’ experience, time with current organization, and hours worked.Results: Of the six work–life areas, only the scores for workload fell below the norm for the respondents. All six work–life areas were impacted by employment settings, with respondents in public health hospitals and clinics indicating significantly low person–environment fit in most areas. Respondents in physical rehabilitation had a significantly low fit for workload, as did years of experience, length of time with organization, and hours worked. Fairness had a low fit for physical rehabilitation and medicolegal fields of practice.Conclusion: Workload impacted workplace‐related stress in respondents with scores below the norm on the AWS for this work–life area. Although some work‐related factors affected workplace‐related stress, the overall scores for the other work–life areas were above the norm, with only respondents in public service settings and in the field of physical rehabilitation reporting low work environment fit.