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Practice assistants´ perceived mental workload: A cross-sectional study with 550 German participants addressing work content, stressors, resources, and organizational structure

INTRODUCTION: Practice assistants represent a highly relevant occupational group in Germany and one of the most popular training professions in Germany. Despite this, most research in the health care sector has focused on secondary care settings, but has not addressed practice assistants in primary...

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Autores principales: Hoffmann, Jan, Kersting, Christine, Weltermann, Birgitta
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7529273/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33002064
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240052
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author Hoffmann, Jan
Kersting, Christine
Weltermann, Birgitta
author_facet Hoffmann, Jan
Kersting, Christine
Weltermann, Birgitta
author_sort Hoffmann, Jan
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Practice assistants represent a highly relevant occupational group in Germany and one of the most popular training professions in Germany. Despite this, most research in the health care sector has focused on secondary care settings, but has not addressed practice assistants in primary care. Knowledge about practice assistants’ workplace-related stressors and resources is particularly scarce. This cross-sectional study addresses the mental workload of practice assistants working in primary care practices. METHODS: Practice assistants from a network of 185 German primary care practices were invited to participate in this cross-sectional study. The standardized `Short Questionnaire for Workplace Analysis’ (German: Kurzfragebogen zur Arbeitsanalyse) was used to assess practice assistants´ mental workload. It addresses eleven workplace factors in 26 items: versatility, completeness of task, scope of action, social support, cooperation, qualitative work demands, quantitative work demands, work disruptions, workplace environment, information and participation, and benefits. Sociodemographic and work characteristics were also obtained. A descriptive analysis was performed for sociodemographic data and “Short Questionnaire for Workplace Analysis” factors. The one-sided t-test and Cohen´s d were calculated for a comparison with data from 23 professional groups (n = 8,121). RESULTS: A total of 550 practice assistants from 130 practices participated. The majority of practice assistants was female (99.3%) and worked full-time (66.5%) in group practices (50.6%). Compared to the other professional groups, practice assistants reported higher values for the factor social support (4.0 versus 3.7 [d 0.44; p<0.001]), information and participation (3.6 versus 3.3 [d 0.38; p<0.001] as well as work disruptions (2.7 vs. 2.4 [d 0.42; p<0.001]), while practice assistants showed lower values regarding scope of action (3.4 versus 3.8 [d 0.43; p<0.001]). CONCLUSIONS: Our study identified social support and participation within primary care practices as protective factors for mental workload, while work disruptions and scope of action were perceived as stressors.
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spelling pubmed-75292732020-10-02 Practice assistants´ perceived mental workload: A cross-sectional study with 550 German participants addressing work content, stressors, resources, and organizational structure Hoffmann, Jan Kersting, Christine Weltermann, Birgitta PLoS One Research Article INTRODUCTION: Practice assistants represent a highly relevant occupational group in Germany and one of the most popular training professions in Germany. Despite this, most research in the health care sector has focused on secondary care settings, but has not addressed practice assistants in primary care. Knowledge about practice assistants’ workplace-related stressors and resources is particularly scarce. This cross-sectional study addresses the mental workload of practice assistants working in primary care practices. METHODS: Practice assistants from a network of 185 German primary care practices were invited to participate in this cross-sectional study. The standardized `Short Questionnaire for Workplace Analysis’ (German: Kurzfragebogen zur Arbeitsanalyse) was used to assess practice assistants´ mental workload. It addresses eleven workplace factors in 26 items: versatility, completeness of task, scope of action, social support, cooperation, qualitative work demands, quantitative work demands, work disruptions, workplace environment, information and participation, and benefits. Sociodemographic and work characteristics were also obtained. A descriptive analysis was performed for sociodemographic data and “Short Questionnaire for Workplace Analysis” factors. The one-sided t-test and Cohen´s d were calculated for a comparison with data from 23 professional groups (n = 8,121). RESULTS: A total of 550 practice assistants from 130 practices participated. The majority of practice assistants was female (99.3%) and worked full-time (66.5%) in group practices (50.6%). Compared to the other professional groups, practice assistants reported higher values for the factor social support (4.0 versus 3.7 [d 0.44; p<0.001]), information and participation (3.6 versus 3.3 [d 0.38; p<0.001] as well as work disruptions (2.7 vs. 2.4 [d 0.42; p<0.001]), while practice assistants showed lower values regarding scope of action (3.4 versus 3.8 [d 0.43; p<0.001]). CONCLUSIONS: Our study identified social support and participation within primary care practices as protective factors for mental workload, while work disruptions and scope of action were perceived as stressors. Public Library of Science 2020-10-01 /pmc/articles/PMC7529273/ /pubmed/33002064 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240052 Text en © 2020 Hoffmann et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Hoffmann, Jan
Kersting, Christine
Weltermann, Birgitta
Practice assistants´ perceived mental workload: A cross-sectional study with 550 German participants addressing work content, stressors, resources, and organizational structure
title Practice assistants´ perceived mental workload: A cross-sectional study with 550 German participants addressing work content, stressors, resources, and organizational structure
title_full Practice assistants´ perceived mental workload: A cross-sectional study with 550 German participants addressing work content, stressors, resources, and organizational structure
title_fullStr Practice assistants´ perceived mental workload: A cross-sectional study with 550 German participants addressing work content, stressors, resources, and organizational structure
title_full_unstemmed Practice assistants´ perceived mental workload: A cross-sectional study with 550 German participants addressing work content, stressors, resources, and organizational structure
title_short Practice assistants´ perceived mental workload: A cross-sectional study with 550 German participants addressing work content, stressors, resources, and organizational structure
title_sort practice assistants´ perceived mental workload: a cross-sectional study with 550 german participants addressing work content, stressors, resources, and organizational structure
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7529273/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33002064
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240052
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