A journey through roses and thorns: becoming a physician by learning from patients with life-threatening illnesses. A qualitative study with international medical students.

The medical students' well-being may be threatened by various stressors associated with providing care to different kinds of patients. This study aims to explore students' clinical experiences with patients who suffer from life-threatening illnesses, focusing on potential risk and protective factors. Audio-recorded and face-to-face interviews were conducted and transcribed verbatim.

Underneath the White Coat: Risk and Protective Factors for Palliative Care Providers in Their Daily Work.

Palliative care practice is associated with risk factors linked to end-of-life, chronicity, personal, interpersonal, and work characteristics, as well as with protective factors, but how these are perceived by the health care providers themselves is not clear. This article aims to elaborate a theoretical framework explaining the risk and protective factors for palliative care providers in their daily practice. Nineteen providers (16 nurses, 3 physicians) working in a palliative care unit of a clinical-research institute in Northern Italy were interviewed.

Emotional dissonance and exhaustion among healthcare professionals: the role of the perceived quality of care.

Objectives: The aim of this exploratory study was to analyze the association between emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion among healthcare professionals, and the mediating role of the perceived quality of care in this relationship.

Material And Methods: Self-report questionnaires were administered to 724 healthcare workers. The measurement model was tested and the mediation hypothesis was verified through hierarchical multiple regression analyses.

Healthcare professionals' perceptions about the Italian law on advance directives.

Background: In the variegated legislative framework on advance directives, the first specific regulation in Italy on this issue came into force only in 2018.

Research Objective: This qualitative study aimed to investigate the implications of the new Italian law on advance directives in clinical practice from the perspective of those who deal with this delicate ethical issue on an everyday basis, that is, Italian healthcare professionals.

Research Design: A qualitative research design using semi-structured audio-recorded interviews was adopted.

Healthcare professionals' moral distress in adult palliative care: a systematic review.

Objectives: Palliative care providers may be exposed to numerous detrimental psychological and existential challenges. Ethical issues in the healthcare arena are subject to continual debate, being fuelled with ongoing medical, technological and legal advancements. This work aims to systematically review studies addressing the moral distress experienced by healthcare professionals who provide adult palliative care.

Clinicians' moral distress and family satisfaction in the intensive care unit.

This study explored the relationship between clinicians' moral distress and family satisfaction with care in five intensive care units in Italy. A total of 122 clinicians (45 physicians and 77 nurses) and 59 family members completed the Italian and the questionnaire, respectively. Clinicians' moral distress inversely correlated with family satisfaction related to the inclusion in the decision-making process.

Keep Up the Good Work! Age-Moderated Mediation Model on Intention to Retire.

In European nations, the aging of the workforce is a major issue which is increasingly addressed both in national and organizational policies in order to sustain older workers' employability and to encourage longer working lives. Particularly older workers' employability can be viewed an important issue as this has the potential to motivate them for their work and change their intention to retire. Based on lifespan development theories and Van der Heijden's 'employability enhancement model', this paper develops and tests an age-moderated mediation model (which refers to the processes that we want to test in this model), linking older workers' (55 years old and over) perceptions of job support for learning (job-related factor) and perceptions of negative age stereotypes on productivity (organizational factor), on the one hand, and their intention to retire, on the other hand, via their participation in employability enhancing activities, being the mediator in our model.

Value congruence and depressive symptoms among critical care clinicians: The mediating role of moral distress.

Clinicians working in intensive care units are often exposed to several job stressors that can negatively affect their mental health. Literature has acknowledged the role of value congruence and job control in determining clinicians' psychological well-being and depressive symptoms. However, potential mediators of this association have been scarcely examined.

Measuring Moral Distress Among Critical Care Clinicians: Validation and Psychometric Properties of the Italian Moral Distress Scale-Revised.

Objectives: Moral distress is a common experience among critical care professionals, leading to frustration, withdrawal from patient care, and job abandonment. Most of the studies on moral distress have used the Moral Distress Scale or its revised version (Moral Distress Scale-Revised). However, these scales have never been validated through factor analysis.

[From the addiction rehabilitation program to the return to work: results of an employment and social intervention among young adults with substance dependence].

Introduction: Substance dependence problems are considered to be a relevant issue for a large proportion of the working population and represent a huge health and occupational cost. However, few studies have examined the return to work after addiction problems.

Aims: This exploratory follow-up study aims to evaluate the return to work, in terms of employment outcomes, perceived work environment and physical and mental health of patients who have completed an addiction rehabilitation program and an employment and social intervention.

[Subjective and objective indicators of job stress and burnout in a residential home for the elderly].

Introduction: Elderly care workers have a higher risk than other professionals of developing burnout. Despite literature has highlighted the methodological advantage resulting from an integration of subjective and objective measures of stressors, only few studies have investigated job stress and burnout in the Italian elderly care context using this kind of assessment. The aims of this study were: (a) to investigate the level of stress and burnout and their organizational sources in a sample of eldercare workers by means of subjective and objective tools, and b) to compare the stress and burnout levels between health care staff and nursing aides employed in a residential home for the, elderly.

When healthcare professionals cannot do the right thing: A systematic review of moral distress and its correlates.

Moral distress occurs when professionals cannot carry out what they believe to be ethically appropriate actions. This review describes the publication trend on moral distress and explores its relationships with other constructs. A bibliometric analysis revealed that since 1984, 239 articles were published, with an increase after 2011.

Return to work after coronary revascularization procedures and a patient's job satisfaction: A prospective study.

Introduction: Research into work reintegration following invasive cardiac procedures is limited. The aim of this prospective study was to explore predictors of job satisfaction among cardiac patients who have returned to work after cardiac rehabilitation (CR).

Material And Methods: The study population consisted of 90 cardiac patients who have recently been treated with coronary angioplasty or heart surgery.

[Professional outcomes and psychological health after workplace bullying: an exploratory follow-up study].

Background: The literature shows that workplace bullying can lead to negative consequences for both individuals' health and professional outcomes. Most of these studies used cross-sectional designs and self-report questionnaires and further research is needed in order to explore long-term effects of workplace bullying.

Objectives: This follow-up study aimed to explore professional and psychological outcomes in a sample of subjects who required a specialized and multidisciplinary assessment for psychological problems related, in their opinion, to workplace bullying.

[Occupational stress in municipal police officers: contribution to the Italian adaptation of a questionnaire for the assessment of the operational and organizational stressors].

Introduction: The study of occupational stress in police has received growing interest because of the potential negative effects that it may produce both on an individual and on an organizational level. The aim of the present research is to give a first contribution to the Italian adaptation of two questionnaires used in order to assess operational and organizational stressors in police: the Operational Police Stress Questionnaire (PSQ-Op) and the Organizational Police Stress Questionnaire (PSQ-Org). METHODS; The PSQ-Op-It and the PSQ-Org-It have been administered to all the municipal police officers serving the population of a small town in Northern Italy (N = 88).

Psychological and Work Stress Assessment of Patients following Angioplasty or Heart Surgery: Results of 1-year Follow-up Study.

The aim of this study was to explore changes in subjective psychological health and perceived work stress among patients who returned to work (RTW) after a multidisciplinary cardiac rehabilitation (CR) following cardiac interventions. A total of 108 patients were evaluated at the beginning of their CR, at 6 and 12 months after discharge. Self-report questionnaires were used to assess depression, anxiety, illness perception and work stress at each time stage.

Public beliefs and attitudes towards depression in Italy: a national survey.

Background: Previous studies have shown that attitudes towards depression may be influenced by country-specific social and cultural factors. A survey was carried out to collect beliefs on and attitudes toward depression in Italy, which has an established community-based mental health system.

Methods: A telephone survey was carried out in a probabilistic sample aged ≥15 years.

Work engagement and occupational stress in nurses and other healthcare workers: the role of organisational and personal factors.

Aims And Objectives: The aims of this study were to: (1) identify the role of organisational and personal factors in predicting work engagement in healthcare workers and (2) compare work engagement and occupational stress perceptions of healthcare professional categories.

Background: Healthcare professionals, with particular regard to nurses, are exposed to several job stressors that can adversely affect both their mental and physical health and also decrease work engagement. Work engagement can be considered as the positive opposite of burnout, and it is characterised by energy, involvement and professional efficacy.

Does job satisfaction predict early return to work after coronary angioplasty or cardiac surgery?

Purpose: Few studies have analyzed the relationship between job satisfaction and return to work (RTW) in cardiac patients. The aim of this paper was to investigate whether job satisfaction predicted early RTW in patients sick listed after cardiac invasive procedures.

Methods: A 6-month prospective study was carried out in a sample of 83 patients in working age who had recently been treated with angioplasty or cardiac surgery.

Organizational features of workplace and job engagement among Swiss healthcare workers.

The aim of this study was to determine the engagement level among healthcare workers in a Swiss hospital, identifying organizational predictors that could affect it. A four-part survey (a demographic questionnaire, Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey, Areas of Worklife Scale, and the General Health Questionnaire) was completed by 206 nurses and physicians. With regards to organizational predictors of job engagement, energy was primarily influenced by workload, involvement by values, and efficacy by reward.

Engagement and Vicarious Traumatization in rescue workers.

Purpose: The aims of this study are (1) to investigate the incidence of the symptoms of Vicarious Traumatization in a group of rescue workers; (2) to explore some of the main predictors of Engagement and Vicarious Traumatization; and (3) to identify the individual and organizational factors able to improve the state of well-being of those working in the helping professions.

Methods: A total of 782 rescue workers, involved in critical operations of various kinds in constant contact with traumatized subjects, were investigated applying the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Scale (MBI-GS) and the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale (STSS).

Results: The post-traumatic symptoms most frequently reported were those of an intrusive nature.