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A study of workaholism in Irish academics
V Hogan1, M Hogan2, M Hodgins3
1Discipline of Health Promotion, School of Health Sciences, NUI Galway, Galway, Ireland, victoria.hogan@nuigalway.ie.
Background:
Workaholism is recognized as a health risk for academics given the open-ended nature of academic work; however, current prevalence rates of workaholism in the academic setting are unknown.
Aims:
To assess the prevalence of workaholism within academics and determine the impact of workaholism on psychological well-being, work-life conflict, work-life fit, job satisfaction and perceived work effort.
Methods:
Academics in three Irish universities completed a survey including measures of workaholism, psychological well-being, work-life conflict and job satisfaction. Analysis of variance tests were used to compare workaholism types on the outcome measures.
Results:
A total of 410 academics completed the survey and were categorized by workaholism type: workaholics (27%), enthusiastic workaholics (23%), relaxed workers (27%) and uninvolved workers (23%). Workaholics reported poorer functioning across all the outcome measures in comparison to the other three groups.
Conclusions:
This study demonstrates the high levels of workaholism within academia and highlights the negative impact of workaholism on work-related outcomes and psychological well-being. These findings are significant given the highly intensive nature of academic work today and reducing resources within this sector.
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