Short-Term and Long-Term Effects of Off-Job Activities on Recovery and Sleep: A Two-Wave Panel Study among Health Care Employees

Jan De Jonge, Akihito Shimazu and Maureen Dollard
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Jan De Jonge: Human Performance Management Group, Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Akihito Shimazu: School of Psychology, Asia Pacific Centre for Work Health and Safety, University of South Australia, P.O. Box 2471, Adelaide 5001, Australia
Maureen Dollard: School of Psychology, Asia Pacific Centre for Work Health and Safety, University of South Australia, P.O. Box 2471, Adelaide 5001, Australia

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 9, 1-11

Abstract: This study examined whether particular recovery activities after work have a positive or negative effect on employee recovery from work (i.e., cognitive, emotional, and physical detachment) and sleep quality. We used a two-wave panel study of 230 health care employees which enabled looking at both short-term and long-term effects (i.e., two-year time interval). Gender, age, marital status, children at home, education level, management position, and working hours were used as control variables. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that work-related off-job activities were negatively associated with cognitive and emotional detachment in both the short and long run, whereas low-effort off-job activities were positively related to cognitive detachment in the short run. Moreover, household/care off-job activities were positively related to sleep quality in the long run, whereas physical off-job activities were negatively associated with sleep quality in the long run. The long-term findings existed beyond the strong effects of baseline detachment and sleep quality. This study highlights the importance of off-job recovery activities for health care employees’ detachment from work and sleep quality. Practical implications and avenues for further research are discussed.

Keywords: recovery from work; off-job recovery activities; panel study; health care employees (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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