Experience of Stress Assessed by Text Messages and Its Association with Objective Workload—A Longitudinal Study

Bozana Arapovic-Johansson, Charlotte Wåhlin, Jan Hagberg, Lydia Kwak, Iben Axén, Christina Björklund and Irene Jensen
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Bozana Arapovic-Johansson: Unit of Intervention and Implementation Research for Worker Health, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute, 171 77 Solna, Sweden
Charlotte Wåhlin: Unit of Intervention and Implementation Research for Worker Health, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute, 171 77 Solna, Sweden
Jan Hagberg: Unit of Intervention and Implementation Research for Worker Health, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute, 171 77 Solna, Sweden
Lydia Kwak: Unit of Intervention and Implementation Research for Worker Health, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute, 171 77 Solna, Sweden
Iben Axén: Unit of Intervention and Implementation Research for Worker Health, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute, 171 77 Solna, Sweden
Christina Björklund: Unit of Intervention and Implementation Research for Worker Health, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute, 171 77 Solna, Sweden
Irene Jensen: Unit of Intervention and Implementation Research for Worker Health, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute, 171 77 Solna, Sweden

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 3, 1-19

Abstract: Exploring stress trajectories in detail and over a long time may give valuable information in terms of both understanding and practice. We followed a group of primary health care employees in a randomized controlled trial. The objective was to describe their experience of stress, explore the intra-individual variability and examine the association between the experience of stress and the objective workload. Weekly text messages with a single item stress question were distributed in two time series: 12 weeks at the beginning of the trial and 26 weeks after the 6-month follow up. Aggregated objective data about workload were collected from their administration office and related to stress levels. There was a seasonal variation, with higher stress during the fall than in spring and summer. The analysis comparing high and low stress subgroups showed that the stress trajectory of a high-stress subgroup was different from that of a low-stress subgroup. Individuals with high exhaustion scores had higher odds of belonging to a subgroup of individuals with high intra-individual variability in stress experience. The objective workload was measured in two ways and was strongly associated with the stress experience. We found that the lower the productivity, the higher the feeling of stress.

Keywords: work stress; objective data; workload; intra-individual variability; new technology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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