(Press-News.org) This news release is available in French.
Commuting length, distance, and means are stress factors that can lead to burnout, says Annie Barreck of the University of Montreal's School of Industrial Relations. "A correlation exists between commuting stress factors and the likelihood of suffering from burnout. But their importance varies according to the individual, the conditions in which their trips take place, and the place where the individual works," she explained. Barreck will present her research today at the 83rd congress of the Association francophone pour le savoir (ACFAS).
Barreck's work compares rural and urban regions of Quebec in terms of their commuting patterns, including types of transport used (car, subway, bus, bike, etc.) and links these patterns to the three dimensions of burnout: emotional burnout, cynicism and professional efficacy. The study involved 1,942 people, aged between 17 and 69, working at 63 organizations in Quebec. Data was collected through Canada's SALVEO survey. Burnout symptoms were ascertained through the Maslah Burnout Inventory General Survey. The findings show that there is a significant link between commuting (i.e. the trip between home and work) and the presentation of the symptoms professional burnout.
No surprises: the bigger the city, the more stressful the commute, at least for people travelling by car. "People commuting towards rural areas, or even suburban areas, feel less stressed out," Barreck said, the finding coming as no surprise to her either. She did however note that passengers are more likely to be stressed out than drivers. "Carpooling reduces the passenger commuters' sense of control, which causes them more stress before they've even arrived at work," she said.
However, people commuting towards rural areas are not entirely spared: those who take long trips in public transit feel less effective in the workplace. "Public transit implies bus or train connections, and as rural regions are less well served, the risk of unforeseeable and uncontrollable delays is increased, causing stress that is carried over into the workplace," Barreck explained. The opposite is true for transit users in major urban areas: the variety of types and times of service means they're less likely to have symptoms of burnout.
Biking is also a mixed bag that is determined by the profile of the area the commuter is working in. Commuting by bike in the suburbs is particularly stressful. "Cyclists in the suburbs have a lesser sense of control than cyclists in the city," Barreck explained. "Cyclists and walkers in the city have access to safety features such as cycle paths and pedestrian crossings, which increases their sense of control over their commute. Meanwhile, as businesses have been leaving city centres over the past 20 years, car traffic continues to increase in the suburbs. In the country, cyclists and walkers use quiet country roads, which are comparatively less stressful and offer a greater sense of control."
Commuting doesn't have to contribute to burnout. "The effects of the duration of a commute on a person's mental health vary according to the type of transport used and the profile of the area where the person works," Barreck said. Her findings show that the risk of burnout increases significantly when a commute lasts more than 20 minutes. In Quebec, it takes an average of 32. Above 35 minutes, all employees are at increased risk of cynicism toward their job. Barreck believes this should lead employers to adopt flexible commuting arrangements. "Managing employee commuting flexibly would increase employee efficiency and moreover enable organisations to attract or retain workers. In the current context of skill shortages, employers have everything to gain from facilitating the mental health of their employees," she said.
INFORMATION:
Notes:
Pending approval of the researcher, this is an unofficial, courtesy translation of a document originally issued in French. The University of Montreal is officially known as Université de Montréal.
In a new national survey of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, Health Union found a severe impact on quality of life, employment, and ability to afford treatment. The autoimmune condition attacks the body, resulting in joint inflammation, pain, stiffness, and swelling, but may also harm other organs. About 1.3 million Americans or about one percent of the global population have RA.
Ninety-four percent of respondents with RA said they cannot do as much as they were able before acquiring the disease. Additionally, 67% said others do not understand the severity of their ...
Protected areas are the cornerstone to prevent species extinctions. The Convention on Biological Diversity have set a target to protect 17% of all terrestrial land by 2020.
Many of the international recommendations concerning protection goals are provided for single countries to take action individually. Researchers in the University of Helsinki, Finland, stress the importance of international collaborations in the protected area expansion process.
"It has been shown that working at the country level is less efficient than promoting transnational collaborations. As ...
New UK research has challenged the assumption that people with rheumatoid arthritis always take their medication as prescribed.
Researchers from the Arthritis Research UK Centre for Epidemiology at The University of Manchester found that 40% of patients scored low on an adherence questionnaire at least once during their time in a recent study, indicating that they might not be taking their expensive biological therapies as regularly as prescribed.
Their research is published online in the journal Rheumatology.
The findings have prompted Arthritis Research UK's head ...
Cough treatments could change dramatically after the herpes virus helped researchers discover that the respiratory tract links to two different parts of the nervous system.
A research team led by The University of Queensland's Dr Stuart Mazzone made the important breakthrough after setting out to learn more about the triggers behind excessive coughing.
"Different physical sensations arise from the upper and lower respiratory tracts in people with respiratory diseases," said Dr Mazzone, from the School of Biomedical Sciences.
"The irritating sensations from the upper ...
Polymer solar cells are a hot area of research due to both their strong future potential and the significant challenges they pose. It is believed that thanks to lower production costs, they could become a viable alternative to conventional solar cells with silicon substrates when they achieve a power conversion efficiency--a measure that indicates how much electricity they can generate from a given amount of sunlight--of between 10 and 15 percent. Now, using carefully designed materials and an "inverted" architecture, a team of scientists has achieved efficiency of 10 percent, ...
Giant strides have been taken in the early care of very premature infants in postnatal intensive care units during the past two decades. Doctors can now support the function of especially the lungs, heart and the circulatory system so as to guarantee the survival of most of even extremely premature infants.
Despite a good start, many of these may still have lifelong problems with brain function, such as attention deficit disorders or difficulty with visual function. For this reason, the primary focus of developing care for premature infants has been on securing brain ...
HANOVER, N.H. - If you're a college student wondering how your study and party habits will affect your GPA, wonder no longer. Dartmouth researchers and their colleagues have built the first app that automatically predicts college students' grade point average based on their smartphone data.
The findings offer new ways to improve students' performance, providing real-time feedback on their studying, partying, sleeping, exercising and other conscious and unconscious behaviors to help them stay on track academically.
Dartmouth computer science Professor Andrew Campbell, ...
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Air pollution regulations issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are estimated to save thousands of lives annually. A new study by researchers at Indiana University says these estimates are more uncertain than commonly believed.
Researchers Kerry Krutilla, David H. Good and John D. Graham of the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs analyzed the costs and expected lifesavings of nine regulations issued between 2011 and 2013. The bulk of these regulations require national emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants. The analysis ...
PITTSBURGH, May 26, 2015 - Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have identified two new classes of RNAs that are closely associated with a protein known to be a prognostic biomarker for breast cancer and could play a role in progression of prostate cancer. Their findings were published in the June issue of the scientific journal RNA.
Levels of human Y-box binding protein 1 (YB-1), which is involved in many cellular functions, have been shown to correlate with drug resistance and poor patient outcomes in a variety of cancers. The observation that ...
When Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse, he didn't give much thought to how he might bring his character to life in the real world. But robotics now puts that possibility within reach, so Disney researchers have found a way for a robot to mimic an animated character's walk.
Beginning with an animation of a diminutive, peanut-shaped character that walks with a rolling, somewhat bow-legged gait, Katsu Yamane and his team at Disney Research Pittsburgh analyzed the character's motion to design a robotic frame that could duplicate the walking motion using 3D-printed links and ...
