The Impact of COVID-19 Restrictions on Mental Well-Being and Working Life among Faroese Employees

Annika H. Davidsen and Maria S. Petersen
Additional contact information
Annika H. Davidsen: Department of Occupational Medicine and Public Health, The Faroese Hospital System, 100 Torshavn, Faroe Islands
Maria S. Petersen: Department of Occupational Medicine and Public Health, The Faroese Hospital System, 100 Torshavn, Faroe Islands

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 9, 1-14

Abstract: The societal changes caused by COVID-19 have been far-reaching, causing challenges for employees around the world. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of the COVID-19 restrictions on mental well-being, working life, family life and social life among Faroese employees within a broad range of professions. A total of 1328 Faroese employees answered an anonymous self-report survey from 13 April to 4 May 2020. Employee mental well-being was only modestly affected by the restrictions and the respondents had a mean score of 50.7 on the Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale where a score between 41–44 is found to correspond with possible depression. Work commitment, work and family life, work satisfaction and work ability were all rated significantly worse after the COVID-19 outbreak than before (all p values < 0.005). Contrary to previous research, employees in health services assessed their work ability significantly higher than employees in teaching, and child and youth care ( p < 0.05). Working parents had higher levels of stress and assessed their work ability significantly lower than employees without children ( p < 0.05), and women tended to be more worried than men because of the pandemic. In conclusion, the overall mental well-being of Faroese employees was on an average level during lock-down in April and May 2020. Their working life seemed, however, to be worse than usual.

Keywords: COVID-19; employee wellbeing; working environment; working parents; Faroe Islands (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4775/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4775/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:9:p:4775-:d:546569

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().