The Work–Family Conflict Scale (WAFCS): Development and Initial Validation of a Self-report Measure of Work–Family Conflict for Use with Parents

Haslam, Divna; Filus, Ania; Morawska, Alina; Sanders, Matthew R.; Fletcher, Renee

doi:10.1007/s10578-014-0476-0

Cited by 97 publications

(90 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Caregiving is a typical example of family stressors, which can interact with work demands to impact on a person's well-being. Parents of young children are at particular risk of work-family conflict (Haslam et al, 2015). Working conditions that are not flexible to these family demands, such as long working hours, could adversely impact on a person's stress reactions.…”

Section: Theories Of Social Stress and Allostatic Loadmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Flexible Work Arrangements Associated with Lower Levels of Chronic Stress-Related Biomarkers? A Study of 6025 Employees in the UK Household Longitudinal Study

et al. 2019

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Debates around the benefits of flexible work arrangements for employee well-being are limited by a lack of empirical analyses on whether flexible working enables employees with work or family stressors to cope with their levels of stress. This study examines whether the availability and use of different flexible work arrangements are associated with lower allostatic load (an index of chronic stress-related biomarkers) in a large representative study of UK adults. Male and female employees who made use of reduced hours working arrangements had lower levels of allostatic load. Among women caring for two or more children aged under 15, there was a difference of almost one unit of the allostatic load index (an additional biomarker risk) between Sociology 53(4) women who used reduced hours flexible work and those without such arrangements. Reduced hours flexible work arrangements could enable women who combine work and family roles to reduce their levels of chronic stress. Article

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Section: Theories Of Social Stress and Allostatic Loadmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Flexible Work Arrangements Associated with Lower Levels of Chronic Stress-Related Biomarkers? A Study of 6025 Employees in the UK Household Longitudinal Study

et al. 2019

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Section: Measures Demographic Information Was Collected With a Modifmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Work and Family Conflict Scale (WAFCS: (Haslam, Filus, Morawska, Sanders, & Fletcher, 2014) was used to measure work-family conflict. The WAFCS is 10-item selfreport measure, previously validated (Haslam et al, 2014) that assesses both work-to-family and family-to-work conflict. Parents are asked to rate their level of agreement on a 7-point scale on items such as: "My work prevents me spending sufficient quality time with my family" (work-family) and "My family has negative impact on my day to day work duties"…”

Section: Measures Demographic Information Was Collected With a Modifmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Frequency Factor 1: Demands related to medical and social support (7 items); Factor 2: Demands related to medical symptoms (5 items); Frequency (12 items); Hassles (15 items). g Scores are based on the Work and Family Conflict Scale (WAFCS) by Haslam et al (2014), where low scores indicating low levels of work-family conflict and high scores indicating high levels of work-family conflict.. *p < .05. **p < .01…”

Section: Group Differences Across Illnessesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Work and Family Conflict Scale or WAFCS (Haslam et al, 2014) is a scale that assesses both work-to-family and family-to-work conflict. Parents rate their agreement to items such using a 7-point scale (1= Very strongly disagree to 7 = Very Strongly Agree).…”

Section: Measures Demographic Information Was Collected With a Modifmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effect of work and family conflict on quality of life of parents and children: an investigation in the context of child chronic illness

Kish¹

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Chronic health conditions impact children worldwide. In Australia, Type 1 diabetes (T1D), asthma and eczema are the most common. With young children (5-12 years), parents play an important role in illness care, while also meeting 'worker' and 'parent' roles. However, when doing so, the care they provide to their child is likely compromised, adversely impacting child health and Quality of Life (QoL). Although the experiences of working parents of children with various chronic conditions have been described, those specific to parents of children with the aforementioned types of chronic illness (CI) have not. Nor has an attempt been made to quantify or compare these to those of other parents. Therefore, the primary focus here will be on the well-being of these parents balancing all such demands, with a secondary focus being to compare the challenges of these parents to those all parents (e.g., those of healthy children) face. A review paper followed by three empirical papers are presented. The first study aimed to better understand the demands placed by work, family and carer roles. One-on-one interviews with 15 mothers (M age = 38.20 years; SD = 0.91) revealed that similar to all parents, mothers were impacted in both their work (e.g., missed work opportunities given parent role) and their family (e.g., less time at home given work). However, 'added' carer responsibilities were evident in terms of their work (e.g., taking time off work to care) and family (e.g., less care because of work). These mothers identified physical (e.g., exhaustion), social (e.g., less personal time) and psychological (e.g., overwhelmed) wellbeing as consequences of such demands. Support was identified as key to their ability to cope. These findings helped to inform the second study, which involved the development and validation of a new measure to quantify the 'additional' illness care demands specific to these parents. The Parent Daily Hassles-Chronic Illness (PDH-CI) scale aimed to measure both the 'frequency' and 'hassle' of these demands, using items developed based on past research and parent and expert feedback. An Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) using 80 parents (M age = 39.40 years, SD = 5.67) of children with CI revealed that the "Frequency" I acknowledge that copyright of all material contained in my thesis resides with the copyright holder(s) of that material. Where appropriate I have obtained copyright permission from the copyright holder to reproduce material in this thesis and have sought permission from coauthors for any jointly authored works included in the thesis.

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Work-Family Conflict and the Sex Difference in Depression Among Training Physicians

et al. 2017

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IMPORTANCE Depression is common among training physicians and may disproportionately affect women. The identification of modifiable risk factors is key to reducing this disease burden and its negative impact on patient care and physician career attrition. OBJECTIVE To determine the presence and magnitude of a sex difference in depressive symptoms and work-family conflict among training physicians; and if work-family conflict impacts the sex difference in depressive symptoms among training physicians. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS A prospective longitudinal cohort study of medical internship in the United States during the 2015 to 2016 academic year in which 3121 interns were recruited across all specialties from 44 medical institutions. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Prior to and during their internship year, participants reported the degree to which work responsibilities interfered with family life using the Work Family Conflict Scale and depressive symptoms using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). RESULTS Mean (SD) participant age was 27.5 (2.7) years, and 1571 participants (49.7%) were women. Both men and women experienced a marked increase in depressive symptoms during their internship year, with the increase being statistically significantly greater for women (men: mean increase in PHQ-9, 2.50; 95% CI, 2.26-2.73 vs women: mean increase, 3.20; 95% CI, 2.97-3.43). When work-family conflict was accounted for, the sex disparity in the increase in depressive symptoms decreased by 36%. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Our study demonstrates that depressive symptoms increase substantially during the internship year for men and women, but that this increase is greater for women. The study also identifies work-family conflict as an important potentially modifiable factor that is associated with elevated depressive symptoms in training physicians. Systemic modifications to alleviate conflict between work and family life may improve physician mental health and reduce the disproportionate depression disease burden for female physicians. Given that depression among physicians is associated with poor patient care and career attrition, efforts to alleviate depression among physicians has the potential to reduce the negative consequences associated with this disease.

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The Work–Family Conflict Scale (WAFCS): Development and Initial Validation of a Self-report Measure of Work–Family Conflict for Use with Parents

Cited by 97 publications

References 37 publications

Are Flexible Work Arrangements Associated with Lower Levels of Chronic Stress-Related Biomarkers? A Study of 6025 Employees in the UK Household Longitudinal Study

Are Flexible Work Arrangements Associated with Lower Levels of Chronic Stress-Related Biomarkers? A Study of 6025 Employees in the UK Household Longitudinal Study

The effect of work and family conflict on quality of life of parents and children: an investigation in the context of child chronic illness

Work-Family Conflict and the Sex Difference in Depression Among Training Physicians

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