Alessio Tesi

The work-related well-being of social workers: Framing job demands, psychological well-being, and work engagement.

Summary Social workers’ occupational health has become a central theme in the psychosocial literature. This study aimed at exploring how specific job demands and psychological well-being are related to work engagement. A sample of 140 Italian social workers was analyzed in accordance with the job demands–resources model. Participants were asked to complete a written questionnaire containing several measurement scales. Findings Multiple regression analyses showed that social workers’ psychological well-being was positively related to work engagement. Moderation analyses also indicated that, when psychological well-being was high (vs. low), job demands were associated to higher levels of work engagement, thus highlighting the buffering role of psychological well-being as a specific personal resource. When job demands were high (vs. low), the psychological well-being appeared to be strongly related to lowest levels of work engagement, showing that high job demands could reduce the fostering role of psychological well-being on social workers’ work engagement. Applications While administration of job demands may often be difficult in social work contexts, managers should be encouraged, as part of a systemic approach to training, to promote specific measures for improving social workers’ psychological well-being as a personal resource for promoting work engagement.

Emotional job demands within helping professions: Psychometric properties of a version of the Emotional Job Demands scale.

People working in helping professions are particularly exposed to emotional demands at work, as emotional situations are a typical component of helping relationships with service users. The main aim of this study is to test the psychometric properties of the Emotional Job Demands brief scale proposed by Xanthopoulou, Bakker, and Fischbach (2013) in the Italian context. The sample consisted of 302 Italian healthcare professionals. Exploratory, confirmatory, and multigroup factor analyses showed that the scale had a two-correlated factor structure which was invariant across gender, age, and professional seniority. The first factor — called “emotional charge of job” — captures the perceived emotional charge of a job and the second factor — called “dealing with users’ complaints” — captures the emotional demands of dealing with negative relationships with service users. The two factors were correlated with other constructs, as expected. The practical implications, limitations of the study, and possible future research lines are discussed.