Dipartimento Medicina del Lavoro
International Conference
Psychosocial Risk Management at Work:
The European Framework
Rome 5 November 2008
“Developing a Model for Assessing Work Organization
Well-being, Job burnout and Mobbing among Health Workers”
P. Deitinger, R. Bentivenga, M. Ghelli
During the activity plan 2005-2007, ISPESL promoted an
action research
about psychosocial risk factors in
collaboration with the Service of Prevention and
Protection of a national health service Unit in central
Italy .
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Dipartimento Medicina del Lavoro
The research
Contest
• The “Territorial Area” consists of 14 social health
districts parceled out in 14 municipalities.
• The 1058 employees of Unit are in the health,
technical and administrative staff.
• The Unit consists of 12 Departments divided in
Operative Units, Services, Districts and Hospital Centers.
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Objective
The Objective is to perform an integrated
psychosocial risks assessment, consistent with
the European Framework for Psychosocial Risk
Management, in order to identify preventive
measures that could improve the health and wellbeing of the Health Unit workers.
Three tools, adapted to health context and with a
proven reliability have been used.
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Methods and tools
1) “Multidimensional Organizational Health Questionnaire” (MOHQ,
F. Avallone & A. Paplomatas, 2005) for the assessment of
organizational health and wellbeing, widely employed by about
200 Italian public administration agencies of 34.000 people, and
subsequently adapted for assessing health care environments.
It has been chosen for the completeness and the full coverage
of the organizational dimensions investigated.
2) Italian adaptation (by L.Borgogni) of the Organizational Check
up System, (OCS, C. Maslach e M.P. Leiter, 2005), for the
assessment of the job burnout/job engagement. The
questionnaire has been standardized on a sample comprised of
945 people. It evaluates 4 issues:
• Work Relation;
• Work Life Areas;
• Change;
• Management Processes;
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Methods and tools
3) “Val.Mob” (A. Aiello, P. Deitinger, C. Nardella e M.
Bonafede, 2008), a scale for assessing mobbing in
workplaces.
The scale has been standardized on a sample
comprised of 441 people, subdivided in 2 groups (A),
Experimental group, and (B), Control group.
The tool is subdivided in 3 parts:
• Mobbing Scale, which investigate 3 factors:
Relationships, Intrusion/Meddling, Disqualification;
• Symptomatological Scale, which concern main
categories of diagnosis which are currently in effect in
the forensic medicine in order to determine mobbing;
• Demographics and organizational data.
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Sample and structural data
The study sample comprised 474 people aged
between 20 and 64 years whose mean is 44.6, and
Standard Deviation 8.33; 63.9% were women and 32.7%
were men.
• Most of them had a middle-school education, with
54.2% of the sample holding the obligatory high-school
leaving certificate.
• The most frequent qualification was professional nurse
(48.1%) and mean time on the job was 10 years (SD 9).
• The working week was 36 hours
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MOHQ: Results
Graph 1: General profile of the Unit
3,00
M = 2.59
2,83
2,50
2,32
2,51
2,44 2,48
2,9 2,95 2,96
2,66 2,66 2,66 2,67 2,7
2,59 2,62
2,06 2,08
2,00
1,50
1,00
A
B
C
D
H
G
I
F
O
E
M
L
N
P
S
Q
R
A=
Stress factors
L=
Clear goals
B=
Tolerable tasks
M=
Indicators of well-being
C=
Fairness
N=
Effectiveness
D=
Indicators of malaise
O=
Psychosomatic Disorders
E=
Conflict
P=
Information
F=
Safety
Q=
Interpersonal relations
G=
Enhancement
R=
Listening
H=
Openness to innovation
S=
Social utility
I=
Comfort
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OCS: Results
Graph 2: Organizational Checkup
Working life areas
Work relation
Occupational
inefficacy
Occupational
efficacy
52
Values
48
Fairness
54
Social inclusion
Occupational
Disaffection
31
Exhaustion
Energy
40
0
10
20
30
Burnout
49
Involvement
40
50
60
70
80
90
Recognition
51
Control
51
Workload
52
0
100
10
Engagement
20
30
Discrepancy
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Tuning
Management processes
Cohesion
53
Competence
51
Leadership
52
55
Change
0
10
20
30
Negative
40
50
60
70
80
Positive
90
100
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Val.Mob.: Scores
Mobbing Scale
Low
Middle
Low
Middle
high
High
Relationship
≤ 27
28-71
72-120
≥ 121
Intrusion /
Meddling
≤ 10
11-12
13-26
≥ 27
Disqualification
≤20
21-42
43-57
≥ 58
Symptomatological
Scale
≤ 30
31-55
56-88
≥ 89
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Val.Mob: Results 1
RELATIONSHIP
HIGH
DISQUALIFICATION
1%
HIGH
MIDDLE HIGH
12%
12%
MIDDLE HIGH
MIDDLE LOW
45%
62%
38%
MIDDLE LOW
LOW
17%
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
MIDDLE LOW
58%
LOW
23%
10
30
40
50
19%
MIDDLE HIGH
11%
0
20
1%
HIGH
1%
MIDDLE HIGH
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SYMPTOMATOLOGICAL
INTRUSION
HIGH
0
70
20
MIDDLE LOW
53%
LOW
30
40
50
60
15%
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
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Val.Mob: Results 2
Cross – validation
• 380 subjects affirm that they are not vexed at work, but
20 of them could appear mobbed or in an mobbing
process.
• 76 subjects affirm that they are vexed at work, but the
data show that only 31 of them are mobbed.
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Conclusions 1
• This organization as a whole appears to function well,
especially considering the excellent Relationships in the
workplace.
• There are however main negative features for
health and organizational well-being:
the
- Psychophysical Stress,
- Tolerable tasks
- Absence of Fairness.
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Conclusions 2
• Issues about mobbing, as Disqualification and
Intrusion, are confirmed by the Val.Mob. Scale
results.
• This phenomenon is so complex that it
requires a deepening at individual level.
• Other dimensions need attention: Safety,
Enhancement, Recognition and Occupational
Disaffection.
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Interventions
Possible interventions should involve:
• Redistribution of workloads and rotation of some of
the heavier tasks.
• Managerial training with focus on the leadership
styles and workers’ enhancement.
• Introduction of incentives in order to enhance the job
engagement.
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Thank you
for your attention!
[email protected]
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