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Justice at Work and Psychiatric Morbidity Among the Personnel of an Italian Hospital

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Abstract

This study evaluated the association between justice in the workplace (and other psychosocial factors) and mental health among healthcare professionals. It was conducted in a sample of hospital employees in Italy. The prevalence of mental disorders was assessed and the relationships between having a disorder and the level of perceived justice, job control and effort-reward imbalance were investigated. Psychiatric morbidity among professionals with higher perceived justice were 0.3–0.9 times lower than those among those with lower perceived justice. This finding suggests that improving fairness at work does matter for disease prevention and mental health promotion policy.

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Acknowledgments

This article is dedicated to Pierluigi Morosini, who passed away in September 2008, a leader in Psychiatric Epidemiology and in the improvement of the quality of healthcare. The authors wish to thank all of the health professionals who participated in this research. We are also grateful to the hospital’s Medical Director for coordinating the local data collection.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mental Health Unit, National Centre of Epidemiology, Surveillance and Health Promotion, Italian National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy

    Antonella Gigantesco

  2. Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Viale Regina Elena, 299, 00161, Rome, Italy

    Antonella Gigantesco

Authors
  1. Antonella Gigantesco
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Antonella Gigantesco.

Appendix Questionnaire “Working Conditions in Healthcare Providers”

Appendix Questionnaire “Working Conditions in Healthcare Providers”

Item

(scale: “very poor”, “poor”, “acceptable”, “good”, “excellent”)

As far as your work is concerned, how do you rate the following?

  1. (1)

    Wages

  2. (2)

    Advancement opportunities

  3. (3)

    Opportunity to learn new things and skills

  4. (4)

    Availability of training courses

  5. (5)

    Availability of learning material (e.g., books, journals, audiovisual materials)

  6. (6)

    Encouragement by managers to acquire and implement new skills

  7. (7)

    Encouragement by managers to make suggestions for improvement

  8. (8)

    Involvement in decision-making that is relevant to one’s job

  9. (9)

    Superiors’ willingness to listen to employees’ problems and provide help

  10. (10)

    Fairness in work quality recognition and promotions

  11. (11)

    Superiors’ consistency in making requests

  12. (12)

    Opportunity to work on a variety of tasks or projects

  13. (13)

    Availability of information (e.g., about meetings, courses, organizational changes)

  14. (14)

    Professional relationships with colleagues

  15. (15)

    Clarity of job responsibilities

  16. (16)

    Feeling of usefulness

  17. (17)

    Personal relationships with colleagues

  18. (18)

    Relationships with administrative staff

  19. (19)

    Physical space and furnishings

  20. (20)

    Available equipment

(scale: “very much”, “much”, “moderately”, “little”, “not at all”)

To what extent are the following features present in your job?

  1. (21)

    Job-related risk of injury or illness

  2. (22)

    Too much or too heavy or too fast work

  3. (23)

    Physical effort

  4. (24)

    Psychological distress

  5. (25)

    Uncomfortable physical position

  6. (26)

    Inconvenient shifts

  7. (27)

    Inconvenient working hours

  8. (28)

    Work at night or during holidays

  9. (29)

    How much more autonomy would you like to have in your work?

(scale: “no, qualifications much too low”, “no, qualifications low”, “yes”, “no, qualifications high”, “no, qualifications much too high”)

  1. (30)

    Does your job correspond to your professional qualifications?

(scale: “never, or at most one day”, “5–2 days”, “10–6 days”, “most days”, “always”)

  1. (31)

    In the last 30 working days, how often were you pleased to go to work?

  2. (32)

    How often, at the end of the workday, did you feel mentally exhausted?

  3. (33)

    How often has your work made you anxious or tense?

(scale: “not at all”, “little” “somewhat” “much”, “very much”)

  1. (34)

    How much do you wish to change your place of work?

  2. (35)

    How much do you wish to change your kind of job?

  3. (36)

    How much have you been a victim of mobbing?

(quantitative scale: number of days or hours)

  1. (37)

    In the past 12 months, how many days have you been absent for illness?

  2. (38)

    In the past 12 months, how many days have you been absent for other reasons (e.g., family reasons)?

  3. (39)

    On average, for how many hours of the day do you feel that you are not doing anything useful?

(Analogical scale from 1 to 10 with three anchor points corresponding to 1 “my workplace condition is the worst possible”, 6 “I have a barely acceptable condition of work”, and 10 “my workplace condition is the best possible”)

  1. (40)

    Please place an “x” on the number that best corresponds to your opinion about your work condition

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Gigantesco, A. Justice at Work and Psychiatric Morbidity Among the Personnel of an Italian Hospital. Community Ment Health J 47, 341–350 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-010-9318-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-010-9318-0

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