engleski

Recovery from work – Is it yet another name for work-stress coping strategies?

Concept of recovery from work has received much scientific attention in recent occupational health psychology literature. It refers to a process during which individual functional systems that have been called upon during a stressful experience return to their prestressor levels. Research confirmed beneficial effects of recovery from work not only on employees' well-being, but also on work-related outcomes such as work engagement and proactive behaviour. Sonnentag and Fritz (2007) differentiated between four recovery experiences during leisure time: psychological detachment from work, relaxation, mastery experiences and control during leisure time. Even though authors assume that these experiences will be related to coping strategies, the overlap between the two domains has not been thoroughly investigated. Hence, the purpose of this study was to examine incremental validity of recovery from work over using coping strategies to predict work stress. 420 Croatian employees of heterogeneous demographical and occupational profiles participated in the online study, which included Recovery experience questionnaire, COPE-60 scale, Job-related Affective Well-being Scale and collection of sociodemographic data. The results showed significant but low correlations between recovery experiences and coping strategies. In addition, the hierarchical regression analysis confirmed the incremental validity of recovery from work over coping strategies in prediction of both positive and negative emotions at work. These findings support the idea that recovery from work is a concept that deserves to be further investigated in research on work stress. Practical implications on work stress prevention intervention will also be discussed.

work stress; recovery from work; coping strategies; emotions at work; occupational health psychology

nije evidentirano