Positive motherhood at work: the role of supervisor support in return to work after maternity leave

Cognitive factors can strongly influence mothers’ well-being. Maternal beliefs about societal expectations, role identity, maternal confidence, and concern about being a good or bad parent threaten maternal well-being, especially if these beliefs are irrational, inflexible, and strict. Moreover, they can negatively influence the critical time of returning to work after maternity leave. As stated by the conservation of resources theory, people may become more irrational when their resources are exhausted, with detrimental effects on individual well-being. To protect and enhance well-being, working mothers should draw upon additional resources, including their organizational contexts. In this regard, a key figure is the supervisor, whose positive behaviours and stable support can improve working mothers’ well-being and facilitate their effective return to work after maternity leave. This study aims at examining the relation between the rigidity of maternal beliefs and well-being (namely, general health, job satisfaction, and job performance), hypothesizing the mediation effect of perceived supervisor support during return to work after maternity leave. The Rigidity of Maternal Beliefs Scale, the measure for Supervisors to Support Return to Work, and the General Health Questionnaire were used together with a two-item measure for examining job performance and a single-item measure for measuring job satisfaction. The questionnaire was completed by 216 mothers. We tested the hypotheses by means of structural equation models with latent variables, using the Lisrel 8.80 software. Findings show that rigidity of maternal beliefs is associated with perceived supervisor support during return to work, which, in turn, is associated with working mothers’ general health, job satisfaction, and job performance. Consequently, perceived supervisor support during return to work totally mediates the relations between the rigidity of maternal beliefs and the outcomes considered. Results underline the centrality of supervisor perceived negative behaviors in sustaining working mothers after the long-term leave, when irrational beliefs regarding motherhood threaten their well-being. Practical implications for HR management are discussed

Organizational psychology and technology: ethical, legal and practical issues related to active listening and work-related stress monitoring in Italy and Europe

La escucha activa es una herramienta poderosa para la prevención y reducción de enfermedades laborales y estrés, así como para mejorar el desempeño e incluso el desarrollo de la responsabilidad social corporativa. La escucha activa y el monitoreo más amplio del estrés relacionado con el trabajo, como se ha demostrado en la literatura y en varias experiencias de investigación en curso, se pueden hacer particularmente efectivos si se implementan en organizaciones a través de métodos tradicionales y tecnológicos, como chats telefónicos y web, síncronos y herramientas de comunicación y mensajería de video asíncronas, buzones electrónicos anónimos y soluciones de denuncia de irregularidades, cuestionarios electrónicos y tecnologías de monitoreo activo, por nombrar sólo algunos. Si bien estas tecnologías pueden tener un impacto positivo en la intervención psicológica en las organizaciones y, por lo tanto, en la vida de los trabajadores, plantean una serie de problemas éticos y legales. Algunos de ellos aún son objeto de arduos debates y están bajo el escrutinio de juntas profesionales y organismos gubernamentales. En Italia, la Junta Nacional de Psicólogos ha publicado recientemente directrices para la práctica psicológica basada en la web. Los parlamentos europeos e italianos también han producido varias normas nuevas que afectan la posibilidad de intervenciones psicológicas. La tecnología no sólo implica la dificultad de los sistemas legales para seguir el ritmo de su evolución, sino que también plantea dificultades concretas en las aplicaciones psicológicas profesionales, a menudo relacionadas con la brecha tecnológica entre las posibilidades teóricas y las capacidades e instrumentos de las organizaciones. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar algunos de estos problemas legales y prácticos, y proponer, sobre la base de un amplio análisis legal y debates reales de estudios de casos, soluciones concretas para aumentar la eficacia de las intervenciones psicológicas.Active listening is a powerful tool for the prevention and reduction of organizational disease and stress as well as for performance enhancement and even corporate social responsibility development. Active listening and wider work-related stress monitoring, as proven in literature and by several ongoing action-research experiences, can be made particularly effective if implemented in organizations through both traditional and technological methods, such as telephone and web-based chats, synchronous and asynchronous video-messaging and communicating tools, anonymous e-dropboxes and whistleblowing solutions, electronic questionnaires, and active monitoring technologies, just to name a few. While these technologies can have a positive impact on psychological intervention in organizations and, therefore, on the life of workers, they pose a series of ethical and legal issues. Some of them are still strongly debated and are under scrutiny of professional boards and governmental bodies. In Italy, the National Board of Psychologists has recently published guidelines for the web-based psychological practice. The European and Italian Parliaments have also produced several new norms that impact on the possibility of psychological interventions. Technology does not only involve the difficulty of the legal systems to follow the pace of its evolution, but also poses concrete difficulties in professional psychological applications, often related with the technological gap between the theoretical possibilities and the capabilities and instruments of the target organizations. This work aims to analyze some of these legal and applied issues and to propose, on the basis of a wide legal analysis and real case-study discussions, concrete solutions for incrementing the efficacy of the psychological interventions.peerReviewe

Is Smart Working Beneficial for Workers' Wellbeing? A Longitudinal Investigation of Smart Working, Workload, and Hair Cortisol/Dehydroepiandrosterone Sulfate during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Building on the job demands-resources (JD-R) and allostatic load (AL) models, in the present study we examined the role of smart working (SW) in the longitudinal association between workload/job autonomy (JA) and a possible biomarker of work-related stress (WRS) in the hair-namely, the cortisol-dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA(S)) ratio-during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, 124 workers completed a self-report questionnaire (i.e., psychological data) at Time 1 (T1) and provided a strand of hair (i.e., biological data) three months later (Time 2, T2). Results from moderated multiple regression analysis showed that SW at T1 was negatively associated with the hair cortisol/DHEA(S) ratio at T2. Additionally, the interaction between workload and SW was significant, with workload at T1 being positively associated with the hair cortisol/DHEA(S) ratio at T2 among smart workers. Overall, this study indicates that SW is a double-edged sword, with both positive and negative consequences on employee wellbeing. Furthermore, our findings suggest that the hair cortisol/DHEA(S) ratio is a promising biomarker of WRS. Practical implications that organizations and practitioners can adopt to prevent WRS and promote organizational wellbeing are discussed

Work addiction among bank employees in Italy: A contribution to validation of the Bergen Work Addiction Scale with a focus on measurement invariance across gender and managerial status

This study contributes to the validation of the Bergen Work Addiction Scale (BWAS) in the Italian context, with a focus on measurement invariance across gender and managerial status. The BWAS is a consolidated measure of work addiction (WA) anchored in general addiction theory that comprises seven items representing the core addiction components. Participants were 8419 bank workers (37.7% women, 12.9% managers) who completed a self-report questionnaire including the Italian version of the BWAS (BWAS-I) and the Dutch Work Addiction Scale, as well as measures of work engagement, perfectionism, workload, psycho-physical symptoms, work–family conflict, and job satisfaction. Results confirmed the single-factor structure of the BWAS-I. Partial scalar invariance held across gender and managerial status, meaning that most—but not all—item intercepts were equivalent across different populations. Furthermore, the BWAS-I showed adequate convergent, discriminant, criterion-related, and incremental validity. This study showed that the BWAS-I is a valuable instrument that can be used by researchers and practitioners to assess WA in the Italian context.publishedVersio

"I that is we, we that is I”:The mediating role of work engagement between key leadership behaviors and volunteer satisfaction

Leadership styles offer relevant clues to the challenging issue of managing volunteers. In particular, we assume that leaders encouraging a collective dimension — such as communal identity, recognition, and trust — among followers can improve positive outcomes. The study aims to analyze the relationship between two key leadership behaviors and volunteer satisfaction, hypothesizing a mediating role of work engagement. The hypothesized relations were tested by using structural equation models in a group of 195 Italian volunteers. Results show that the two key leadership behaviors studied are positively associated to work engagement, which, in turn, is positively related to volunteer satisfaction. The relationships between the antecedents and outcome are totally mediated by work engagement. We explain our findings through the job demands-resources (JD-R) model. Training programs for leaders can be implemented on the basis of this study to enhance volunteers’ well-being

When Does Work Interfere With Teachers’ Private Life? An Application of the Job Demands-Resources Model

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between contextual work-related factors on the one hand, in terms of job demands (i.e., risk factors) and job resources (i.e., protective factors), and work-family conflict (WFC) in teachers on the other. Building on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, we hypothesized that job demands, namely qualitative, and quantitative workload, are positively associated with WFC in teachers. Moreover, in line with the buffer hypothesis of the JD-R, we expected job resources, in terms of support from supervisor (SS), job autonomy (JA), and participation in decision making (PDM), to affect this association, which is expected to be stronger when job resources are low. The study was conducted in an Italian secondary school. Overall, 122 teachers completed a self-report questionnaire aimed at determining WFC, as well as job demands and resources. The hypothesized relationships were tested using moderated multiple regression. The results of this study largely support our predictions. First, both aspects of workload were positively associated with WFC. Secondly, job resources, including SS and PDM, buffered this association, which was stronger when resources were low. On the contrary, JA did not buffer the association between workload and WFC. Overall, the results of this study are consistent with the JD-R model and contribute to the understanding of work–family conflict among teachers. More specifically, our study suggests that teachers with high levels of job resources, namely SS and PDM, can effectively cope with job demands, in terms of both qualitative and quantitative workload, thus preventing negative consequences such as conflict between work and family domains. Interventions aimed at preventing WFC among teachers should encourage organizations to optimize the balance between job demands and resources, as well as the identification and training of the workers at risk of WFC

Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of RGD and isoDGR-Monomethyl Auristatin Conjugates Targeting Integrin (V3)

This work reports the synthesis of a series of small molecule-drug conjugates containing the \u3b1V\u3b23-integrin ligand cyclo[DKP-RGD] or cyclo[DKP-isoDGR], a lysosomally cleavable Val-Ala (VA) linker or an "uncleavable" version devoid of this sequence, and monomethyl Auristatin E (MMAE) or F (MMAF) as cytotoxic agent. The conjugates were obtained via a straightforward synthetic scheme taking advantage of a copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition as key-step. The conjugates were tested for their binding affinity to the isolated \u3b1v\u3b23 receptor, and shown to retain nanomolar IC50 values, in the same range of the free ligands. The cytotoxic activity of the conjugates was evaluated in cell viability assays with \u3b1v\u3b23 integrin over-expressing human glioblastoma (U87) and human melanoma (M21) cells. The conjugates possess a markedly lower cytotoxic activity compared to the free drugs, which is consistent with an inefficient integrin-mediated internalization. In almost all cases the conjugates featuring isoDGR as integrin ligand exhibited higher potency than their RGD counterparts. In particular, cyclo[DKP-isoDGR]-VA-MMAE conjugate has low nanomolar IC50 values in cell viability assays with both cancer cell lines tested (U87: 11.50 \ub1 0.13 nM; M21: 6.94 \ub1 0.09 nM) and is therefore a promising candidate for in vivo experiments.This work reports the synthesis of a series of small-molecule\u2013drug conjugates containing the \u3b1 V \u3b2 3 -integrin ligand cyclo[DKP-RGD] or cyclo[DKP-isoDGR], a lysosomally cleavable Val-Ala (VA) linker or an \u201cuncleavable\u201d version devoid of this sequence, and monomethyl auristatin E (MMAE) or F (MMAF) as the cytotoxic agent. The conjugates were obtained via a straightforward synthetic scheme taking advantage of a copper-catalyzed azide\u2013alkyne cycloaddition as the key step. The conjugates were tested for their binding affinity for the isolated \u3b1 v \u3b2 3 receptor and were shown to retain nanomolar IC 50 values, in the same range as those of the free ligands. The cytotoxic activity of the conjugates was evaluated in cell viability assays with \u3b1 v \u3b2 3 integrin overexpressing human glioblastoma (U87) and human melanoma (M21) cells. The conjugates possess markedly lower cytotoxic activity than the free drugs, which is consistent with inefficient integrin-mediated internalization. In almost all cases the conjugates featuring isoDGR as integrin ligand exhibited higher potency than their RGD counterparts. In particular, the cyclo[DKP-isoDGR]-VA-MMAE conjugate has low nanomolar IC 50 values in cell viability assays with both cancer cell lines tested (U87: 11.50\ub10.13 nm; M21: 6.94\ub10.09 nm) and is therefore a promising candidate for in vivo experiments

Hair dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate as biomarker of employees’ well-being? A longitudinal investigation of support, resilience, and work engagement during COVID-19 pandemic

IntroductionBuilding on the motivational process of the job demands-resources (JD-R) theory, in the current research we investigated the longitudinal association between supervisor support/resilience as job/personal resources, work engagement (WE) and hair dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate, or DHEA(S), as a possible biomarker of employees’ well-being.MethodsIn the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, 122 workers completed two self-report questionnaires (i.e., psychological data): the former at Time 1 (T1) and the latter three months afterwards, at Time 2 (T2). Participants also collected a strand of hair (i.e., biological data) at T2.ResultsResults from path analysis showed that both SS and resilience at T1 were positively related to WE at T2, which, in its turn, was positively related to hair DHEA(S) at T2. Both SS and resilience at T1 had a positive indirect effect on hair DHEA(S) at T2 through WE at T2, which fully mediated the association between job/personal resources and hair DHEA(S).DiscussionOverall, results are consistent with the motivational process of the JD-R. Furthermore, this study provides preliminary evidence for the role of hair DHEA(S) as a biomarker of WE, a type of work-related subjective well-being that plays a central role in the motivational process of the JD-R, leading to favorable personal and organizational outcomes. Finally, the article outlines practical implications for organizations and professionals to foster WE within the workplace

Euclid Near Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer instrument concept and first test results obtained for different breadboards models at the end of phase C

The Euclid mission objective is to understand why the expansion of the Universe is accelerating through by mapping the geometry of the dark Universe by investigating the distance-redshift relationship and tracing the evolution of cosmic structures. The Euclid project is part of ESA's Cosmic Vision program with its launch planned for 2020 (ref [1]). The NISP (Near Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer) is one of the two Euclid instruments and is operating in the near-IR spectral region (900- 2000nm) as a photometer and spectrometer. The instrument is composed of: - a cold (135K) optomechanical subsystem consisting of a Silicon carbide structure, an optical assembly (corrector and camera lens), a filter wheel mechanism, a grism wheel mechanism, a calibration unit and a thermal control system - a detection subsystem based on a mosaic of 16 HAWAII2RG cooled to 95K with their front-end readout electronic cooled to 140K, integrated on a mechanical focal plane structure made with molybdenum and aluminum. The detection subsystem is mounted on the optomechanical subsystem structure - a warm electronic subsystem (280K) composed of a data processing / detector control unit and of an instrument control unit that interfaces with the spacecraft via a 1553 bus for command and control and via Spacewire links for science data This presentation describes the architecture of the instrument at the end of the phase C (Detailed Design Review), the expected performance, the technological key challenges and preliminary test results obtained for different NISP subsystem breadboards and for the NISP Structural and Thermal model (STM)

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat