The Impact of Mental Health Leadership on Teamwork in Healthcare Organizations: A Serial Mediation Study

Background: There is compelling evidence to suggest that leadership behaviour and teamwork are critical success factors in healthcare organisations facing increasingly complex demands and limited resources. Effective teamwork is essential to deliver high-quality care, requiring integrating different professionals in the healthcare sector. Leaders play a significant role in facilitating teamwork by managing conflicts and promoting cooperation among team members. The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the importance of leadership in supporting the mental health and well-being of team members. Methods: A cross-lagged research design was used to examine the relationship between mental health-specific (MHS) leadership and teamwork. Participants were 118 healthcare professionals (76.3% female;44.9% aged between 45 and 54 years old). Results: A serial mediation model was confirmed, showing an indirect effect of mental health leadership on teamwork through interpersonal conflict and cooperation. Conclusions: Effective (MHS) leadership can positively impact the teamwork of healthcare professionals, particularly during times of crisis.

Development and Initial Validation of the Safety Training Engagement Scale (STE-S).

Safety training promotes safety at work, in particular through the use of engaging methods. This study introduces a newly developed measure of individual engagement in safety training, and aims to analyze the psychometric proprieties of the scale. The safety training engagement scale (STE) consists of five items pertaining to the trainee's dedication and absorption in a safety training session. Two studies are carried out to analyze the validity of the scale. The first study focuses on the construct (internal) validity, to examine the scale's internal consistency and dimensional structure. The second study seeks to provide further evidence for construct validity by testing the external validity of the scale. The sample consists of 913 (study 1) and 133 (study 2) participants in safety training programs in the field of the chemical industry who were invited to fill the STE scale after attending a safety training course. The results provide support to affirm the validity and reliability of the scale. The discussion describes the implication and the limitations of using the STE scale in practical safety training programs, and outlines recommendations for research to improve the scale's robustness.

Italian Validation of the 12-Item Version of the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT-12).

The Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT) has shown satisfactory validity evidence in several countries, with the 23-item version of the instrument reporting adequate psychometric properties also in the Italian context. This paper is aimed to present results from the Italian validation of the 12-item version of the BAT. Based on a sample of 2277 workers, our results supported the factorial validity of a higher-order model represented by 4 first-order factors corresponding to the core dimensions of burnout, namely exhaustion, mental distance, and emotional and cognitive impairment. The measure invariance of the BAT-12 between data collected before and during the COVID-19 pandemic was supported. However, ANCOVA results suggest a higher score on the second-order burnout factor on data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic in comparison with earlier data. In line with the JD-R model, the BAT-12 total score reported a positive association with job demands (i.e., workload, time pressure, and role conflict) and a negative association with job resources (i.e., job autonomy, coworkers' support) and personal resources (i.e., optimism, social self-efficacy, and task self-efficacy). Additionally, the BAT-12 showed a negative association with work engagement components (i.e., vigor, dedication, and absorption) and positive job attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction, affective commitment). All in all, our results identify the Italian version of the BAT-12 as a brief and reliable tool for measuring burnout among workers.

A New Academic Quality at Work Tool (AQ@workT) to Assess the Quality of Life at Work in the Italian Academic Context.

The present study provides evidence for a valid and reliable tool, the Academic Quality at Work Tool (AQ@workT), to investigate the quality of life at work in academics within the Italian university sector. The AQ@workT was developed by the QoL@Work research team, namely a group of expert academics in the field of work and organizational psychology affiliated with the Italian Association of Psychologists. The tool is grounded in the job demands-resources model and its psychometric properties were assessed in three studies comprising a wide sample of lecturers, researchers, and professors: a pilot study (N = 120), a calibration study (N = 1084), and a validation study (N = 1481). Reliability and content, construct, and nomological validity were supported, as well as measurement invariance across work role (researchers, associate professors, and full professors) and gender. Evidence from the present study shows that the AQ@workT represents a useful and reliable tool to assist university management to enhance quality of life, to manage work-related stress, and to mitigate the potential for harm to academics, particularly during a pandemic. Future studies, such as longitudinal tests of the AQ@workT, should test predictive validity among the variables in the tool.

Job Insecurity and Job Performance: A Serial Mediated Relationship and the Buffering Effect of Organizational Justice.

The study aimed to extend the current knowledge of the relationship between job insecurity and performance. In line with traditional stress theories, work-family and burnout were hypothesized as serial mediators of the negative link between job insecurity and job performance. Also, the current study hypothesized that the association between job insecurity and the mediators [i.e., Work-family conflict (WFC) and burnout] could be buffered by perceived organizational justice among employees. Therefore, we empirically tested a moderated serial mediation model. Participants were 370 employees of an Italian multiservice social cooperative. Data were collected using a self-report questionnaire in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. The obtained results indicated that WFC and burnout mediated the association between job insecurity and job performance. Furthermore, perceived organizational justice buffered the relationship between job insecurity and WFC. Concerning job burnout, the association with job insecurity was moderated only among employees perceiving medium and high levels of organizational justice. The moderated serial mediation index provided support to the role of organizational justice in decreasing the association between job insecurity and job performance. This study delves deeper into the variables explaining the relationship between job insecurity and job performance by testing a serial process mechanism that involved WFC and burnout. Additionally, the obtained results provide suggestions to organizations and managers regarding the protective role of organizational justice to sustain employees' mental health and performance. Practical implications at the organizational and managerial level are provided, along with a focus on the actual impact of the pandemic.