Impact of digital stress on negative emotions and physical complaints in the home office: a follow up study

BACKGROUND: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic many employees perform under increasingly digital conditions. Enabling home office environments became mandatory for companies wherever possible in consideration of the ongoing pandemic. Simultaneously, studies reported on digital stress. The current literature lacks rigorous research into digital stress on psychosomatic outcomes, emotions, and disease. Therefore, we endeavor to understand how digital stress developed over the course of the pandemic and if it predicts differences in negative emotions and physical complaints in the home office setting. METHODS: To answer the research question, we conducted an online survey among 441 employees in 2020 and 398 employees in 2022 from three municipal administrations in Germany, who were working from home at least occasionally. We used a cluster analysis to detect digitally stressed employees. Regression analyses were performed on digital stress, negative emotions, and physical complaints. RESULTS: The analysis revealed an increase from 9 to 20% in digital stress, while negative emotions and physical complaints did not show evident differences. In the multivariate model, we observe a change in the proportion of digitally stressed employees between 4 and 17%, while the control variables explain around 9%. CONCLUSIONS: Digital stress did not significantly affect either negative emotions or physical complaints. However, digital stress appeared to exert a more substantial predictive influence on negative emotions. The study emphasizes rising digital stress, which contradicts a positive adaption to the digital working conditions within the observed period. The psychosomatic relations are low or lagged. Further research investigating digital stress and countermeasures, especially to understand how to prevent harmful long-term effects such as distress resulting from working from home conditions, is needed.