Quality of working life and career engagement of cancer survivors: the mediating role of effect of disease and treatment

Abstract

Purpose This study aims at investigating the relationship between the quality of working life and career engagement of cancer survivors and the mediating role of the effect of disease and treatment. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional study was conducted on 400 cancer survivors in Malaysia. The participants, aged between 18 and 40, were Malaysian citizens undergoing follow-up sessions at the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital and the National Cancer Institute of Malaysia. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation coefficient and regression analysis that implemented Baron and Kenny’s method for mediation were used for analyses. Findings The effect of treatment and disease was found to significantly mediate the relationship between quality of work-life and career engagement of cancer survivors. Research limitations/implications The instrument for this study was a self-reported questionnaire, with participants responding to specific items on a five-point Likert scale under the supervision of the researchers. As results from the survey were subjective in nature, the bias in the participants could not be eliminated completely. This study was also limited to the two main parameters, namely, quality of working life and career engagement and a mediator, namely, effects of the disease and treatment. Moreover, as the survey was conducted in only two hospitals in the Klang Valley area, the results cannot be generalized to other cancer survivors in other regions of Malaysia. Practical implications The results of this study indicated that the mediating role of the effects of disease and treatment on the relationship of the quality of working life subscales with career engagement. Practical implications, cancer survivor consciousness of the effects of disease and treatment is very important and should be addressed and could be notable to improve the quality of working life. Originality/value This study gives valuable insight to managers and practitioners by investigating the relationship between the quality of working life and career engagement and mediates by the effects of disease and treatment. The findings highlight the challenges cancer survivors face on their return to working life. The findings also highlight the need for management to take steps to help cancer survivors cope with career engagement for better work performance.

Education, Employment, and Financial Outcomes in Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors—A Systematic Review

“…In most studies investigating employment, the majority of AYA cancer survivors were employed at the time of the study [17,19,20,24,25,31,32,34,35,37,[40][41][42][43][44]46] (Table 4). Some survivors reported reduced ability to work and were consequently uncertain whether cancer had long-term effects on their ability [31,49].…”

Work Life After Cancer Treatment

“…Kanser tedavisi sonrası dönemde, hastalık sürecine bağlı olarak işverenlerin çoğu bu bireylerin performanslarında eskiye göre düşüş olacağını düşünmekte ve bu sebeple de bazı bireyler, işsizlik ya da erken emekli olma gibi riskleri diğer çalışanlara göre daha fazla yaşamaktadırlar (Arndt et al, 2019;Hamzah et al, 2020). Ayrıca bireylerde kanser tedavisinin olumsuz etkileri yanında işini kaybetme korkusu, iş bulamama korkusu, çalışmak için kendinde yeterli gücü bulamama, dikkatini işe verememe ve çalışma yaşamında başarısızlık gibi düşüncelerde oluşabilmektedir (Kline et al, 2018;de Boer et al, 2020b;Hamzah et al, 2020).…”

“…Yorgunluk dışında genel bilişsel işlevlerinde, kısa süreli bellekte düşüşler olabilmekte ve bu sorunlar iş kapasitelerine yansıyabilmekte ve bozulmuş iş kapasitelerine bağlı birçok olumsuz deneyim ise beraberinde yaşanmaktadır (Butow et al, 2020). Yaşanılan bu deneyim ve sorunlar, kişilerin kariyer başarısı ve iş seçimleri üzerinde olumsuzluklara yol açabilmekte, kişilerin iş yaşamını bırakmalarına neden olmaktadır (Menhert, 2011;Kline et al, 2018;Hamzah et al, 2020). İşverenler genellikle tedavi tamamlandıktan sonra devam eden sorunlar (yorgunluk, depresyon, anksiyete ve diğer psikososyal sıkıntılar gibi) ve yan etkiler konusunda anlayışsız davranabilmekte, işverenler ve iş arkadaşları, kanser sonraki dönem için yapılması gereken kontroller ve bu kontroller için gereken izin ihtiyaçları ve tedavi tamamlandıktan sonra bile devam eden fiziksel ve duygusal etkileri anlamayabilmektedirler (Kline et al, 2018).…”

Predicting work engagement among young adult cancer survivors: A moderated mediation model

“…Moreover, there also seemed to be an insufficient study on predicting these concepts related to employed cancer survivors' gender and work engagement. Apart from that, there is a link between employee engagement and demographics such as age (Gupta et al, 2016 ; Hamzah et al, 2020 ).…”