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The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Occupational Stress in Restaurant Work: A Qualitative Study

The economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impacted the food service industry—one of the largest workforce sectors in the United States. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the occupational stressors experienced by restaurant and food service workers durin...

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Autores principales: Lippert, Julia F., Furnari, Mackenzie B., Kriebel, Charlie W.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8508391/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34639678
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910378
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author Lippert, Julia F.
Furnari, Mackenzie B.
Kriebel, Charlie W.
author_facet Lippert, Julia F.
Furnari, Mackenzie B.
Kriebel, Charlie W.
author_sort Lippert, Julia F.
collection PubMed
description The economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impacted the food service industry—one of the largest workforce sectors in the United States. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the occupational stressors experienced by restaurant and food service workers during the COVID-19 pandemic through a detailed assessment of their lived experiences. Thematic analysis was used to identify patterns within data from sixteen semi-structured interviews with people employed or recently employed in the restaurant industry during July of 2020. Five themes were highlighted including fear of being exposed to the COVID-19 virus while working under inadequate safety policies, job insecurity, inconsistent pay and hours and a lack of health benefits and paid time off, all of which increased occupational stress and led to uncertainty if respondents would return to the restaurant industry. Hardships associated with the pandemic were mitigated by the support and connections fostered by the communities built within the restaurants. Results led to several recommendations to address the social and economic contributors to occupational stress at the structural and population levels which can be used in the current and post-pandemic workplace.
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spelling pubmed-85083912021-10-13 The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Occupational Stress in Restaurant Work: A Qualitative Study Lippert, Julia F. Furnari, Mackenzie B. Kriebel, Charlie W. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impacted the food service industry—one of the largest workforce sectors in the United States. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the occupational stressors experienced by restaurant and food service workers during the COVID-19 pandemic through a detailed assessment of their lived experiences. Thematic analysis was used to identify patterns within data from sixteen semi-structured interviews with people employed or recently employed in the restaurant industry during July of 2020. Five themes were highlighted including fear of being exposed to the COVID-19 virus while working under inadequate safety policies, job insecurity, inconsistent pay and hours and a lack of health benefits and paid time off, all of which increased occupational stress and led to uncertainty if respondents would return to the restaurant industry. Hardships associated with the pandemic were mitigated by the support and connections fostered by the communities built within the restaurants. Results led to several recommendations to address the social and economic contributors to occupational stress at the structural and population levels which can be used in the current and post-pandemic workplace. MDPI 2021-10-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8508391/ /pubmed/34639678 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910378 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Lippert, Julia F.
Furnari, Mackenzie B.
Kriebel, Charlie W.
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Occupational Stress in Restaurant Work: A Qualitative Study
title The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Occupational Stress in Restaurant Work: A Qualitative Study
title_full The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Occupational Stress in Restaurant Work: A Qualitative Study
title_fullStr The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Occupational Stress in Restaurant Work: A Qualitative Study
title_full_unstemmed The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Occupational Stress in Restaurant Work: A Qualitative Study
title_short The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Occupational Stress in Restaurant Work: A Qualitative Study
title_sort impact of the covid-19 pandemic on occupational stress in restaurant work: a qualitative study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8508391/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34639678
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910378
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