How and When May Technostress Impact Workers' Psycho-Physical Health and Work-Family Interface? A Study during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy.

Although a growing body of research has analyzed the determinants and effects of technostress, it is still unclear how and when technostress would impact workers' psycho-physical health and work-family interface during the pandemic. To fill this gap, this study tests the mediating mechanisms and the boundary conditions associated with the impact of technostress on workers' psycho-physical well-being and work-family conflict. A total of 266 Italian workers completed online questionnaires measuring (traditional vs. remote) working modalities, technostress, fear of COVID-19, working excessively, psycho-physical distress, work-family conflict, loss of a loved one due to COVID-19, and resilience. Structural equation models were performed. Results indicated that technostress was positively related to psycho-physical distress and work-family conflict, as mediated by fear of COVID-19 and working excessively, respectively. The loss of a loved one exacerbated the effects of fear of COVID-19 on psycho-physical health, while resilience buffered the effects of working excessively on work-family conflict. Since numerous organizations intend to maintain remote working also after the COVID-19 emergency, it is crucial to study this phenomenon during its peaks of adoption, to prevent its potential negative outcomes. The implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.

Psychophysical Risk Perceptions and Sleep Quality of Medical Assistance Team Members in Square Cabin Hospitals: A Repeated Cross-Sectional Study.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the association between the perceptions of psychophysical risks and sleep quality of Medical Assistance Team Members (MATMs) in Square Cabin Hospitals. Methods: Repeated cross-sectional data collection was conducted in Square Cabin Hospitals during two large-scale lockdowns. The first wave was sampled from MATMs dispatched to Wuhan and the second was from MATMs dispatched to Shanghai. Participants completed online questionnaires comprised of the Risk Perception Questionnaire (RPQ), Positive and negative emotions scale (PANAS), and Sleep Quality Scale (SQS), measuring the psychophysical risk perceptions about the MATMs' current work, emotional states, and sleep quality. Changes across two waves of data collection were statistically parsed using the exploratory factor analysis and regression models. Results: Data of 220 participants from first-wave samples [S1] and 300 from second-wave samples [S2] were analyzed. Participants reported more worries about physical risks, such as inadequate protection methods and being infected, and S1 rated higher on all risks compared with S2 (as the biggest p-value was 0.021). Across the different situations, the dominant emotional states of MATMs were positive; a higher level of psychophysical risk perceptions, negative emotional states, and poor sleep quality were consistently interrelated. The psychophysical risk perceptions predicted sleep quality. Negative emotions as a state variable intensified the relationship between physical risk perceptions and sleep quality (bindirect effect = 1.084, bootstrapped CI = [0.705, 1.487]). Conclusions: The results provide important evidence that MATMs' higher level of psychophysical risk perceptions associated with negative emotions could indicate worse sleep quality.

Psychophysical Testing in Chemosensory Disorders.

Purpose of Review: To provide an overview of psychophysical testing in olfaction and gustation. Recent Findings: Subjective patient report correlates poorly with objective assessment of olfaction and gustation. It is therefore important that clinicians and researchers perform psychophysical testing during chemosensory assessment. There are several validated psychophysical tests of olfaction and gustation, with ongoing developments accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. These tests have been culturally and linguistically adapted globally. Screening tests have been developed with careful consideration to distinguish normosmics from those with olfactory dysfunction. Summary: Validated chemosensory tools are available for use by the clinician to support screening, diagnosis, or monitoring. There are promising advances in self-assessment and screening that provide avenues for the development of a standardised pathway for identification and formal assessment of patients with smell and taste disorders.

Moral Distress among Frontline Physicians and Nurses in the Early Phase of COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy.

During the COVID-19 health emergency, healthcare professionals faced several ethical demanding job stressors, becoming at particular risk of moral distress. To date, only a few scales have been developed to evaluate moral distress among frontline professionals working in contact with COVID-19 patients. Moreover, although many healthcare professionals from various disciplines were converted to COVID-19 patient care, no study has yet analyzed whether the resulting change in duties might represent a risk factor for moral distress. Thus, this study aimed to investigate how and when the change in duties during the emergency would be related to healthcare professionals' psycho-physical malaise. To this aim, a first Italian adaptation of the Stress of Conscience Questionnaire (SCQ) was provided. In total, 272 Italian healthcare professionals participated in this cross-sectional study. Healthcare professionals who had to perform tasks outside their usual clinical duties were more likely to experience moral distress and then psycho-physical malaise. This was particularly likely for those who were extremely concerned about becoming infected with the virus. The results also indicated that the Italian adaptation of the SCQ had a one-factor solution composed of six items. This study provides the first Italian adaptation of SCQ and practical suggestions on how supporting professionals' well-being during emergencies.

What Drives US Stock Markets during the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Global Sensitivity Analysis

This paper identifies robust determinants of US stock price movements in the economic shadow of the COVID-19 crisis and in the presence of model uncertainty, using several influential factors highlighted in relevant research. Our investigation performs an extreme bounds analysis (EBA), a global sensitivity framework capable of handling the problem of model uncertainty. We document that excess market returns, term spread, implied volatility, oil, Twitter-based economic uncertainty, and European and Chinese stock returns are the only variables that are robust to all possible variations in the condition set of information. The results also reveal the irrelevance of newly reported COVID-19 cases and deaths as novel drivers that contribute to the formation stock prices, thus lending support to the “psychophysical numbing” phenomenon.

Gustatory Function in Acute COVID-19 - Results From Home-Based Psychophysical Testing.

OBJECTIVE: Gustatory function during COVID-19 is self-reported by around 50% of patients. However, only a few studies assessed gustation using psychophysical testing during acute infection. The objective of this study is to test gustatory function on threshold tests in the very first days of COVID-19. METHODS: Psychophysical testing consisted of validated and blinded tests for olfaction (NHANES Pocket Smell Test) and gustation (Taste Strips Test). These test kits were sent to home-quarantined patients and self-administered using a detailed instruction sheet. RESULTS: A total of 51 patients were included in this study. Testing was performed 6.5 ± 2.7 days after sampling of respiratory swabs. At this time 37% of patients stated to currently experience a gustatory impairment. The mean Taste Strips score was 10.0 ± 3.4 with 28% scoring in the range of hypogeusia. Interestingly, no significant difference in the results of gustatory testing could be observed between the group with subjectively preserved gustation and the group with self-rated taste impairment. CONCLUSION: During the very first days of COVID-19, psychophysical gustatory testing revealed hypogeusia in 28%. This is far lower than patients' self-reports. Different from previous studies, we did not find clear evidence for an impairment of only certain taste qualities. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 3 Laryngoscope, 132:1082-1087, 2022.

The Perceived Risk of Being Infected with COVID-19 at Work, Communication, and Employee Health: A Longitudinal Application of the Job Demands–Resources Model

The perceived risk of being infected at work (PRIW) with COVID-19 represents a potential risk factor for workers during the current COVID-19 pandemic. In line with the job demands–resources (JD-R) model in the context of safety at work, in this longitudinal study we propose that PRIW can be conceptualized as a job demand (JD), whereas communication (i.e., the exchange of good-quality information across team members) can be conceived of as a job resource (JR). Accordingly, we hypothesize that PRIW at Time 1 (T1) would positively predict psychophysical strain at Time 2 (i.e., four months later), and that communication at T1 would negatively predict psychophysical strain at T2. Overall, 297 workers participated in the study. The hypothesized relationships were tested using multiple regression analysis. The results support our predictions: PRIW positively predicted psychophysical strain over time, whereas communication negatively predicted psychophysical strain over time. The results did not change after controlling for age, gender, and type of contract. Overall, this study suggests that PRIW and communication might be conceived of as a risk and a protective factor for work-related stress, respectively. Hence, to promote more sustainable working conditions, interventions should help organizations to promote an adequate balance between JDs and JRs related to COVID-19.

Job stress and resilience in Iranian nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic: A case-control study.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has created a wide range of sociocultural pressures on nurses. Resilience is defined as one's ability to adapt to an unpredictable situation and it can be a factor in accepting an undesirable psychosocial situation. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study was to examine resilience in nurses in the face of job stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: The study was carried out as a case-control study with participation of 400 nurses as the target group (nurses exposed to COVID-19 patients) and the control group (nurses not exposed to COVID-19 patients). To examine resilience and job stress, Conor and Davidson's questionnaire and OSIPOW questionnaire were used respectively. RESULTS: The mean scores of job stress and resilience were significantly different between the target and control groups (p < 0.05). So that resilience in the target group was less than that in the control group. In addition, job stress in the target group was higher than that of the control group (p < 0.05). There was a significant and negative correlation between resilience and job stress and the correlation was stronger in the target group (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Given the high job stress score in the participants and its negative correlation with resilience, there is need to provide the health personnel with efficient preventive and treatment approaches, improve and educate the principles of resilience, improve mental health services system, and introduce programs to control some of demographical factors in job stress such as physical activity, and employment status of nurses.

Negative Perception of the COVID-19 Pandemic Is Dropping: Evidence From Twitter Posts.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit hard society, strongly affecting the emotions of the people and wellbeing. It is difficult to measure how the pandemic has affected the sentiment of the people, not to mention how people responded to the dramatic events that took place during the pandemic. This study contributes to this discussion by showing that the negative perception of the people of the COVID-19 pandemic is dropping. By negative perception, we mean the number of negative words the users of Twitter, a social media platform, employ in their online posts. Seen as aggregate, Twitter users are using less and less negative words as the pandemic evolves. The conclusion that the negative perception is dropping comes from a careful analysis we made in the contents of the COVID-19 Twitter chatter dataset, a comprehensive database accounting for more than 1 billion posts generated during the pandemic. We explore why the negativity of the people decreases, making connections with psychological traits such as psychophysical numbing, reappraisal, suppression, and resilience. In particular, we show that the negative perception decreased intensively when the vaccination campaign started in the USA, Canada, and the UK and has remained to decrease steadily since then. This finding led us to conclude that vaccination plays a key role in dropping the negativity of the people, thus promoting their psychological wellbeing.

COVID-19 related olfactory dysfunction prevalence and natural history in ambulatory patients.

BACKGROUND: Evidence regarding prevalence of COVID-19 related Olfactory dysfunction (OD) among ambulatory patients is highly variable due to heterogeneity in study population and measurement methods. Relatively few studies have longitudinally investigated OD in ambulatory patients with objective methods. METHODS: We performed a longitudinal study to investigate OD among COVID-19 ambulatory patients compared to symptomatic controls who test negative. Out of 81 patients enrolled, 45 COVID-19 positive patients and an age- and sex-matched symptomatic control group completed the BSIT and a questionnaire about smell, taste and nasal symptoms. These were repeated at 1 month for all COVID-19 positive patients, and again at 3 months for those who exhibited persistent OD. Analysis was performed by mixed-effects linear and logistic regression. RESULTS: 46.7% of COVID-19 patients compared to 3.8% of symptomatic controls exhibited OD at 1-week post diagnosis (p<0.001). At 1 month, 16.7%, (6 of 36), of COVID-19 patients had persistent OD. Mean improvement in BSIT score in COVID-19 patients between 1-week BSIT and 1 month follow-up was 2.0 (95% CI 1.00 - 3.00, p<0.001). OD did not correlate with nasal congestion (r= -0.25, 95% CI, -0.52 to 0.06, p=0.12). CONCLUSIONS: Ambulatory COVID-19 patients exhibited OD significantly more frequently than symptomatic controls. Most patients regained normal olfaction by 1 month. The BSIT is a simple validated and objective test to investigate the prevalence of OD in ambulatory patients. OD did not correlate with nasal congestion which suggests a congestion-independent mechanism of OD.

Assessment of patient recognition of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-associated olfactory loss and recovery: a longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND: The clinical course of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) olfactory dysfunction remains poorly characterized, often limited by self-reported measures. Given the logistical challenges of psychophysical testing, understanding the longitudinal relationship between self-reported and quantitative measures can help accurately identify patients with persistent olfactory dysfunction. This study aimed to longitudinally correlate measured and subjective olfactory function in COVID-19 subjects. METHODS: A prospective, longitudinal study evaluating subjective and measured olfaction was conducted on ambulatory COVID-19 subjects. Olfaction scores were obtained using a visual analogue scale (VAS) (0 = anosmia, 10 = normosmia) and the validated 12-item Brief Smell Identification Test (BSIT). Weekly testing was performed until recovery (BSIT ≥ 9/12 and/or VAS = 10/10) or study completion. RESULTS: Eighty-six polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-positive COVID-19 subjects were recruited ≤3 days from diagnosis and 52 completed longitudinal testing. Among those with self-reported smell loss at recruitment, similar levels (75.8%) of objective (BSIT ≥ 9/12) and subjective recovery were obtained using a VAS cutoff ≥8, yet only 30.3% reported complete subjective recovery (VAS = 10). Median times to objective and complete subjective olfactory recovery were 12 ± 2.3 and 24 ± 3.5 days, respectively. Although both measures showed chemosensory improvement, the distributions of objective and full subjective olfactory recovery differed significantly (log rank test χ2 = 6.46, degrees of freedom [df] = 1, p = 0.011). Overall correlation between BSIT and VAS scores was moderate to strong across longitudinal follow-up (rs = 0.41-0.65). CONCLUSION: Self-reported and psychophysically measured COVID-19 olfactory dysfunction improve at similar levels and are moderately correlated longitudinally, yet there is a significant delay in complete subjective recovery. Psychophysical testing in conjunction with qualitative assessments may be considered for counseling and follow-up of patients with COVID-19 smell loss.

SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Healthcare Professionals and General Population During "First Wave" of COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study Conducted in Sicily, Italy.

On December 31, 2019, an outbreak of lower respiratory infections was documented in Wuhan caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Since the beginning, SARS-CoV-2 has caused many infections among healthcare workers (HCWs) worldwide. Aims of this study were: a. to compare the distribution among the HCWs and the general population of SARS-CoV-2 infections in Western Sicily and Italy; b. to describe the characteristics of HCWs infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the western Sicilian healthcare context during the first wave of the epidemic diffusion in Italy. Incidence and mean age of HCWs infected with SARS-CoV-2 were comparable in Western Sicily and in the whole Italian country. The 97.6% of infections occurred in HCWs operating in non-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) working environments, while an equal distribution of cases between hospital and primary care services context was documented. Nurses and healthcare assistants, followed by physicians, were the categories more frequently infected by SARS-CoV-2. The present study suggests that healthcare workers are easily infected compared to the general population but that often infection could equally occur in hospital and non-hospital settings. Safety of HCWs in counteracting the COVID-19 pandemic must be strengthened in hospital [adequate provision of personal protective equipment (PPE), optimization of human resources, implementation of closed and independent groups of HCWs, creation of traffic control building and dedicated areas in every healthcare context] and non-hospital settings (influenza vaccination, adequate psychophysical support, including refreshments during working shifts, adequate rest, and family support).

Psychophysical evaluation of chemosensory functions 5 weeks after olfactory loss due to COVID-19: a prospective cohort study on 72 patients.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the evolution of chemosensation via extended psychophysical testing in patients who suffered from sudden chemosensory loss due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Additionally, this study sought to determine whether odor threshold testing provided additional information on olfactory loss due to COVID-19 compared to the more common odor identification testing. METHODS: Prospective cohort study of patients with sudden chemosensory loss since February 2020 and confirmed COVID-19 infection via RT-PCR or serology testing. Olfactory function was tested extensively using the "Sniffin Sticks" test battery. In addition, we screened gustatory perception and nasal cooling sensations using psychophysical tests. RESULTS: Seventy-two patients completed the study. After a mean of 37 days, 37% of patients showed olfactory dysfunction, 7% were dysgeusic, and 48% showed signs of low sensitivity for cooling sensation. A longer duration of anosmia before smell improvement was correlated with lower olfactory function at 5 weeks. Odor threshold detection was more affected by COVID-19 compared to odor identification. CONCLUSION: Five weeks after developing sudden chemosensory loss due to COVID-19, a high proportion of patients were dysosmic and showed signs of low nasal cooling sensitivity, whereas most of them had normal taste function. SARS-CoV-2 affected mainly odor thresholds, possibly suggesting that the major cause of loss of smell lies at the level of the olfactory neuroepithelium, rather than in the central nervous system.

Effects of COVID-19 on Sense of Smell: Human Factors/Ergonomics Considerations.

OBJECTIVE: We review the effects of COVID-19 on the human sense of smell (olfaction) and discuss implications for human-system interactions. We emphasize how critical smell is and how the widespread loss of smell due to COVID-19 will impact human-system interaction. BACKGROUND: COVID-19 reduces the sense of smell in people who contract the disease. Thus far, olfaction has received relatively little attention from human factors/ergonomics professionals. While smell is not a primary means of human-system communication, humans rely on smell in many important ways related to both quality of life and safety. METHOD: We briefly review and synthesize the rapidly expanding literature through September 2020 on the topic of smell loss caused by COVID-19. We interpret findings in terms of their relevance to human factors/ergonomics researchers and practitioners. RESULTS: Since March 2020 dozens of articles have been published that report smell loss in COVID-19 patients. The prevalence and duration of COVID-19-related smell loss is still under investigation, but the available data suggest that it may leave many people with long-term deficits and distortions in sense of smell. CONCLUSION: We suggest that the human factors/ergonomics community could become more aware of the importance of the sense of smell and focus on accommodating the increasing number of people with reduced olfactory performance. APPLICATION: We present examples of how olfaction can augment human-system communication and how human factors/ergonomics professionals might accommodate people with olfactory dysfunction. While seemingly at odds, both of these goals can be achieved.