44 research outputs found
Divergence of Fsub type checking
No full textSystem F-less than or equal to is an extension of second-order typed lambda calculus, where a subtype hierarchy among types is defined, and bounded second-order lambda abstraction is allowed. This language is a basis for much of the current research on integration of typed functional languages with subtypes and inheritance. An algorithm to perform type checking for F-less than or equal to expressions has been known since the language Fun was defined. The algorithm has been proved complete, by the author acid Curien, which means that it is a semi-decision procedure for the type-checking problem. In this paper we show that this algorithm is not a decision procedure, by exhibiting a term which makes it diverge. This result was the basis of Pierce's proof of undecidability of typing for F-less than or equal to. We study the behavior of the algorithm to show that our diverging judgement is in some sense contained in any judgement which makes the algorithm diverge. On the basis of this result, and of other results in the paper, we claim that the chances that the algorithm will loop while type-checking a ''real program'' are negligible. Hence, the undecidability of F-less than or equal to type-checking should not be considered as a reason to prevent the adoption of F-less than or equal to as a basis For defining programming languages of practical interest. Finally, we show the undecidability of an important subsystem of F-less than or equal to
Managing stress and preventing burnout in healthcare professionals during the Covid-19 emergency
No full textResearch goals and background: Protecting the mental health of health workers during the
Covid-19 emergency was a relevant topic due to the negative effects on psychophysical health, the increasing stress, and the potential occurrence of burnout (Greenberget al., 2020; Jianbo et al., 2020). Healthcare professionals are among the workers at greatest risk of exposure to the virus and their commitment at the forefront of the health emergency exposes them to a growing operational and emotional overload (Kinman et al., 2020; Theorell, 2020). In reflection of this, the Italian Workers Compensations Authority (INAIL), in collaboration with the Italian Council of the Order of Psychologists, promoted an initiative aimed at providing psychological support to health professionals through the dissemination of procedural guidelines and useful tools intended for psychological aid in hospitals.
Methods: After the guidelines, several task forces of psychologists started counselling and
psychological support services targeted healthcare professionals, with the aim of
understanding their needs and responding to possible psychological problems that may arise in healthcare workers during the Covid-19 emergency. INAIL also created a network with 15 units of psychologists from hospitals located throughout Italy for monitoring such psychological support activities. Monitoring was made possible by the collection of an anonymized psychological triage checklist developed by INAIL that allowed collecting standardised information on psychological support activities provided by the national health service. Data from each unit were aggregated and analysed by Inail.
Results: The network of 15 units involved 229 professional psychologists working in the
hospitals. The network provided 808 checklists of psychological triage to INAIL, including
information from about 2,000 psychological sessions (average = 3.5 sessions per healthcare
worker asking for help). Data monitoring refers to the period from February to September 2020. Most of health care professionals asking for help from the services were female (74%), nurses (49,4%), or doctors (20,4%). Among the others, the most frequent reactions to the event found were depressive symptoms (59%) and psychosomatic disorders (44%). Findings about impacts and interventions will be discussed.
Conclusions: During the emergency, it was required to provide immediate interventions of
individual psychological support to equip health care professionals with tools and strategies for coping, adaptation, and recovery. The development, at a later stage, of a second level
monitoring was useful to analyse how the procedure at the local level has been implemented
and the impacts on mental health in the hospital setting. Findings offer information also to
optimize the tools and resources provided with the aim of promoting a procedure with high
quality standards
Validation of the Intervention Preparedness Tool: a short measure to assess important pre-conditions for successful implementation of organizational interventions
No full textResearch goals and background: Organizational interventions are complex (Nielsen & Noblet,
2018) and the intervention context may influence the extent to which interventions achieve their intended outcomes (Nielsen et al., 2021), therefore interventions need to be tailored to the organizational context in order for them to succeed (Nielsen et al., 2021). Limited knowledge exists about how to assess the context of the intervention pre-intervention. Such knowledge is crucial to develop supportive interventions that may help ensure the intervention achieve its intended outcomes. In the present study, we present the Intervention Preparedness Tool (IPT). Using theories of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) and sensemaking theory (Weick, 2005), we developed and validated a 7-item short process evaluation questionnaire (IPT) that aims to evaluate the preparatory phases of the intervention and may be used to optimize the intervention process. The factors included were based on a review of the existing literature on the factors that may influence the intervention process (Schelvis et al., 2016).
Methods: The study was conducted in two Italian hospitals participating in an
organizational intervention (N = 1,654 healthcare workers). We conducted exploratory factor
analysis (EFA) on one half of the sample and we cross-validated the best factor structure
identified through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the other half of the sample. To
perform nomological validation, we correlated the IPT with seven psychosocial risk
factors (demand, control, peer support, management support, roles, relationships, changes)
and job satisfaction.
Results: Results of the EFA and CFA showed that the IPT composed of 7-items has a threefactor structure (readiness for change, intervention-context fit, and communication). In test of the nomological validity, we found that the dimensions of the IPT were significantly related to psychosocial risk factors and job satisfaction.
Conclusions: The main contributions of this study are that we developed and validated the IPT
for evaluating key elements, readiness for change, communication and intervention-context fit, of the preparation phase of organizational interventions. It is our hope that the IPT can be used to develop supportive activities to ensure the subsequent phases of the organizational
intervention run smoothly, thus increasing the chances that the intervention succeeds
La metodologia per la valutazione e gestione del rischio stress lavoro-correlato. Modulo contestualizzato al settore sanitario
No full textIl monografico illustra i risultati delle attività di ricerca e di sperimentazione sul campo effettuate dal Laboratorio rischi psicosociali e tutela dei lavoratori vulnerabili con la collaborazione di strutture sanitarie afferenti al Servizio Sanitario Nazionale (Ssn), che hanno portato allo sviluppo del Modulo contestualizzato al settore sanitario della Metodologia Inail per la valutazione e gestione del rischio stress lavoro-correlato
Job demands and resources and their association with employee well-being in the healthcare sector: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies
No full textResearch goals and background: At European level, the healthcare sector is considered one of
the most at-risk contexts for employee well-being. Healthcare employees are exposed to a
wide range of straining work characteristics. Despite this, a comprehensive overview of the
major job characteristics experienced by the European healthcare employees, and a metaanalytic investigation of their long-term relationships with well-being, is lacking.
Guided by the JD-R model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017), we investigated which job demands
and resources have been prospectively explored in literature in the European healthcare
sector. Second, we quantified the prospective associations between these job demands and
resources and employee well-being. Third, we tested if the relationships between job demands and resources and well-being were moderated by generic or healthcare-specific job demands and resources, source (Nielsen et al., 2017), time lag, gender, and age.
Methods: We followed PRISMA guidelines (Moher et al., 2009) to retrieve eligible publications.
We limited our search to European longitudinal studies published between 2008 and the date
of search (March 2019). We assumed a random-effects model and performed univariate and
multivariate analyses (Cheung & Chan, 2005). Moderator analysis was performed using
subgroup analysis and mixed-effects meta-regressions. Publication bias and the presence of
outliers were finally inspected.
Results: 50 independent samples were selected for inclusion. Demands, lack of control, lack of
support, negative relationships, and role stress emerged as generic job demands; work
schedule, interaction with patients, emotional demands, work-life conflict, physical demands,
organizational unfairness, lack of development, and straining work environment as contextual
demands. We identified control, support, positive relationships, and role clarity as generic job
resources; opportunities for development, organizational fairness, staff adequacy, work
environment and equipment, and work-life balance as contextual resources. Univariate and
multivariate analyses showed that the prospective effects on well-being for job demands and
resources were significant. We found evidence for reciprocal effects between JD-R and wellbeing, with perception of demands and resources predicting well-being, and vice versa. No significant differences in well-being between generic and specific job characteristics, and
between multiple-level job demands and resources, were found.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that accurate psychosocial risk assessment should consider
both generic and occupation-specific job demands and resources to better catch the
specificities of high-risk sectors such as the healthcare, and to design effective interventions.
These may be focused on reducing job demands and building resources at different levels to
successfully improve well-being
Compositional Effects of Tech-related Resources and Demands on Work Engagement and Psychological Stress
No full textntroduction: New technological developments in work arrangements are changing the
characteristics of work (e.g., new technological demands) and the way in which jobs are
designed and organized (e.g., remote working). Within this background, it arises the need to
understand how these changes impact workers' occupational health and motivation. While
most of research focused on both bright and dark sides of tech-related variables on employee
well-being, the role of organizational context and work groups in promoting tech-related
advancements and hindering tech-related stress has been only partially addressed. Consistent
with these premises and adopting the JD-R theory as an overarching theoretical framework, we
propose a multilevel approach to disentangle individual- and departmental-level effects of
technological acceptance and techno-overload on motivational and psychological health
outcomes. We expect tech-related resources and demands to operate in line with motivational
and health-impairment paths proposed by the JD-R model at both levels of analysis, and that
departmental-level (shared) tech-related resources and demands may influence such
outcomes more strongly than the mere sum of individual perceptions (i.e., at the departmental
level, we expect both resources and demands to act “as more than the sum of its employees”).
Aims: We conducted a multilevel study aimed at investigating how positive and negative
aspects of technology may associate differently at different levels of the organizational system
(i.e., between individuals and between departments) with outcomes of psychological distress
and work motivation; Furthermore, we aimed to investigate the individual- and departmental-
level effects of the job tech-related resource (i.e., technological acceptance) and the job-related
demand (i.e., techno-overload) on the selected outcomes (i.e., work engagement and
subjective appraisals of stress).
Methods: The final total sample is composed of 19,334 workers nested within 123 production
units sampled from a large electricity company. Appraisals of tech-related resources and
demands were measured by administering a self-report questionnaire filled by the employees
within each unit. The data analysis phase was conducted by following the Multilevel Covariate
Approach. We decomposed each variable into two latent uncorrelated variable parts instead of
being treated as an observed variable as in conventional multilevel regression modelling.
Finally, we examined the contextual effects of tech-related job resources and demands on work
engagement and subjective stress, namely the difference between individual- and
departmental-level effects.
Findings: Consistent with the hypotheses, results showed that technological acceptance was
positively related to work engagement and negatively associated with perceived stress at both
levels of analysis, while higher levels of techno-overload were associated with higher subjective
appraisals of stress (at both levels) and negatively associated with work engagement only at
the departmental level. All contextual effects resulted significant (except for tech-acceptance on
work engagement).
Conclusions: Results suggested that the combination of individual tech-related resources and
demands at the departmental level shed more light on motivational and well-being functioning
than the mere sum of their individual appraisals of tech-related protective and risk factors.
Organizations may implement group-level interventions to deal with techno-demands and to
better deploy techno-resources
Validation of the intervention preparedness tool: a short measure to assess important precursors for successful implementation of organisational interventions
No full textProcess evaluation enables us to gain insights into the complex organisational intervention processes, but has mostly taken place post intervention, thus failing to support implementation. Using the theory of planned behaviour, we developed and validated a 7-item process evaluation questionnaire (the Intervention Preparedness Tool) that aims to evaluate the preparatory phases of the intervention and may be used to optimise the intervention process. The study was conducted in two Italian hospitals participating in an organisational intervention (N = 1,654 healthcare workers).
We conducted exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on one half of the sample and cross-validated the best factor structure identified through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the other half of the sample. Results showed that the Intervention Preparedness Tool composed of 7 items has a three-factor structure (readiness for change, intervention-context fit, and communication). To perform nomological validation, we correlated the Intervention Preparedness Tool with seven psychosocial working conditions (demand, control, peer support, supervisor support, roles, relationships, changes) and job satisfaction. We found that the dimensions of the Intervention Preparedness Tool were significantly related to these working conditions and job satisfaction suggesting that the organisational context may be related to participants’ appraisals of the early phases of participatory interventions
Assessing objective and verifiable indicators associated with work-related stress: Validation of a structured checklist for the assessment and management of work-related stress
No full textRisk assessment represents an essential part of any successful intervention in health and safety at work. The most prominent European methodologies propose multi-method approaches for identifying the risks associated with work-related stress. Nevertheless, the most widely used method is the self-administered questionnaire. By adapting the UK Management Standards approach, the Italian National Workers Compensation Authority (INAIL) developed a checklist for the assessment of objective and verifiable indicators of work-related stress. This checklist is filled in by a steering group composed of homogenous groups of workers. Through a web-platform developed by INAIL, a considerable amount of data over the last 5 years has been collected throughout Italy. The aims of this study are to examine the psychometric properties as well as the practical validity of the checklist in a wide sample of Italian companies. The sample comprised 5,301 homogeneous groups of workers nested within 1,631 organizations. The checklist measures two main areas: (1) the organizational indicators of work-related stress (sentinel events) and (2) four and six factors related respectively to content and context of work. Multilevel and multivariate analyses revealed that the checklist shows adequate factor structure and criterion validity. Results also demonstrate that small companies and the public and healthcare sector show higher risk levels. These results support the use of the checklist as a structured and generalizable tool for assessing and monitoring the risks associated with work-related stress
Job demands and resources and their association with employee well-being in the European healthcare sector: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective research
No full textDespite the extant research on work and well-being in the healthcare sector, a comprehensive overview of the key work characteristics, and a meta-analytic investigation of their over-time relationships with well-being, are still lacking. This study provides (1) a summary of the most investigated job demands and resources at the group, leadership, and organisation levels (GLO) explored in the European healthcare sector; (2) a quantitative analysis of their prospective association with well-being; (3) a test of the moderator effect of work characteristics’ source (GLO) and time lag. A systematic literature search was completed resulting in 47 independent samples (N = 39,467 healthcare employees). We identified a wide range of challenge (i.e. workload), hindrance (i.e. role stress), threat demands (i.e. violence from patients) and resources (i.e. control, support). Meta-analytic results showed that hindrance and threat demands were more detrimental than challenge demands, but unexpectedly challenge demands were not related to motivational outcomes. Baseline resources had an important role in protecting and promoting follow-up employee well-being, with group-level resources being more strongly negatively associated with strain. We found no significant differences in well-being between GLO levels of job demands. Time lag did not significantly moderate the prospective associations among work characteristics and employee well-being
Role of turnover, downsizing, overtime and night shifts on workplace violence against healthcare workers: a seven-year ecological study
No full textAbstract Background About one-third of workers identify organisational factors as contributors to workplace violence (WPV), but the associations between these factors and WPV have primarily been explored retrospectively and with measures of perceived organisational constraints, hence providing limited information for prevention. Therefore, we assessed whether objectively measured ward-level indicators of turnover, downsizing, overtime, and night shifts are associated with the occurrence of WPV and whether these associations vary by ward type. Methods We conducted an ecological study at a university hospital in northern Italy from 2016 to 2022, using wards as statistical unit (average: 230 wards per year). Active surveillance of WPV was based on an in-hospital incident reporting procedure, updated in November 2021 based on Health Regional Administration guidelines; 2021 was therefore excluded as a transition year. Individual-level administrative data were used to compute ward-level yearly indicators of turnover, downsizing, overtime and night shifts per active worker. Using generalised linear models, we estimated rate ratios (RRs) for yearly WPV counts per 1 SD increase in the indicators, controlling for study period, ward type (emergency department [ED], psychiatric ward, other) and ward sociodemographic composition. Results A total of 337 WPV episodes occurred in the 1381 ward-year observations. The WPV rates per 100 active workers per year increased from 1.40 (95%CI: 1.23–1.60) during 2016–2020 to 3.48 (2.90–4.17) in 2022. Higher turnover (RR, 95%CI: 1.47, 1.23–1.75) and downsizing (1.12, 1.00-1.24) were associated with a greater occurrence of WPV across all wards; these associations were consistent across the study periods. In wards with night shift scheduling, turnover (1.64, 1.40–1.92), downsizing (1.21, 1.04–1.40) and the mean number of night shifts (2.50, 1.37–4.56) were associated with WPV. The association between night shifts and WPV was greater in psychiatric wards (RR = 8.73; interaction p-value = 0.02), whereas the role of downsizing was greater in EDs (RR = 1.42, interaction p-value = 0.09) and the role of turnover was greater in the other wards (RR = 1.34, interaction p-value = 0.16). Conclusion Work organisational factors are associated with the occurrence of WPV episodes against healthcare workers. Ward type-tailored priorities should be given to minimising turnover and downsizing and promoting a fairer allocation of night shifts to decrease WPV occurrence
