03/19/2024
By Sundus Siddique

The Department of Public Health invites you to attend a doctoral dissertation defense by Sundus Siddique on "The impact of organizational commitment to safety and psychosocial work exposures on mental health outcomes and work ability in healthcare workers."

Candidate: Sundus Siddique
Degree: ScD in Public Health - Epidemiology
Defense Date: Wednesday, April 3, 2024
Time: 10 a.m.
Location: Dugan 110B and via Zoom

Dissertation Committee:

  • Chair: Laura Punnett
  • Leland Ackerson
  • Rebecca Gore
  • Yuan Zhang

Abstract

Background: Healthcare workers face prodigious amounts of mental, emotional, and physical demands at work on a daily basis which predisposes them to adverse mental health and possibly reduced workability. In this context, modifiable work exposures like job level safety hazards, psychological demands, decision latitude, assault, negative acts at work, supervisor support and coworker support and organizational support for safety are of prime importance. The role of organizational commitment to worker safety and demonstrable reduction in job hazards remains largely unexplored in healthcare workers and is the primary exposure of interest for us.

Objectives: We examined the impact of understudied psychosocial work exposures like organizational support for safety on the mental health and work ability of a mixed population of licensed and unlicensed healthcare workers.

Methods: We utilized data from the SHIFT study which collected data from five US public sector healthcare facilities. We quantified cross sectional as well as longitudinal associations between work exposures and organizational commitment to safety exposures and mental health outcomes. Our outcomes of interest were the emotional exhaustion dimension of burnout, depression and work ability. We tested causal frameworks using the novel Wanderveele method using psychosocial work exposures as upstream causal predictors for emotional exhaustion and depression outcomes in HCWs. In 2021,17 workers were interviewed from the same facilities.