The Combined Effect of Perceived COVID-19 Infection Risk at Work and Identification with Work Community on Psychosocial Wellbeing among Finnish Social Sector and Health Care Workers

Eerika Finell and Annukka Vainio
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Eerika Finell: Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, 33100 Tampere, Finland
Annukka Vainio: Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 20, 1-12

Abstract: It has been well documented that both risk perception and group identification are related to psychosocial well-being. However, their combined effect has rarely been analyzed. We examined the combined effect of perceived risk associated with COVID-19 infection at work and work community identification on psychosocial well-being (i.e., frequency of stress symptoms) among health care and social sector workers in Finland ( N = 1279). Data were collected via an online questionnaire in June 2020 and analyses of covariance were conducted. Perceived COVID-19 infection risk at work was classified into high, medium and low risk. In total, 41% of participants reported a high risk. After all background variables were included, participants who reported high perceived infection risk and low work community identification reported stress symptoms more often than those who reported high perceived risk and high identification ( p = 0.010). Similarly, the former differed significantly from all other comparison groups (medium and low risk, p < 0.001), being the most stressed. We found that perceived infection risk and work community identification were not related to each other. Our conclusion is that high work community identification can buffer employee stress when faced with a high perceived health risk. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, work organizations with a high infection risk should advance the possibility of employees’ identification with their work community.

Keywords: COVID-19; coronavirus pandemic; shared identity; risk perception; work identification; stress; psychosocial well-being; health care workers; social workers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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