Interaction effects among multiple job demands: an examination of healthcare workers across different contexts

Simultaneous exposure to time, cognitive, and emotional demands is a feature of the work environment for healthcare workers, yet effects of these common stressors in combination are not well established.

Survey data were collected from 125 hospital employees (Sample 1, Study 1), 93 ambulance service employees (Sample 2, Study 1), and 380 aged care/disability workers (Study 2).

Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted.

In Sample 1, high cognitive demand exacerbated high emotional demand on psychological strain and job burnout, whereas the negative effect of high emotional demand was not present at low cognitive demand. In Sample 2, a similar pattern between emotional demand and time demand on stress-remedial intentions was observed. In Study 2, emotional demand × time demand and time demand × cognitive demand interactions again revealed that high levels of two demands were stress-exacerbating and low levels of one demand neutralized the other. A three-way interaction on job satisfaction showed the negative impact of emotional demand was exacerbated when both time and cognitive demands were high, creating a "triple disadvantage" of job demands.

The results demonstrate that reducing some job demands helps attenuate the stressful effects of other job demands on different employee outcomes.