Daniela Converso

Università degli Studi di Torino | UNITO · Dipartimento di Psicologia

Background: Work ability (WA) is an important construct in the occupational health field. Over the years, various WA detection tools have been developed, and a new one is: Work Ability Personal Radar (WA-PR), capable of investigating all the dimensions that define the complexity of WA. The WA-PR was born in the Finnish context, however recently it...

Studies on the prevalence of burnout in professionals in service organizations who work in direct contact with the clients or users of the organization have concluded that burnout is a serious health disorder that has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A significant advantage of the Spanish Burnout Inventory (SBI) over other instruments is tha...

Confronting death and suffering represent central work-related contents in the funeral industry occupations. Despite past research evidence on the role of psychosocial risks, a positive side of the relationship with death exposure has also been highlighted. To expand research on these topics, the aim of the present study was to analyze the role of...

The present study provides evidence for a valid and reliable tool, the Academic Quality at Work Tool (AQ@workT), to investigate the quality of life at work in academics within the Italian university sector. The AQ@workT was developed by the QoL@Work research team, namely a group of expert academics in the field of work and organizational psychology...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, universities worldwide have provided continuity to research and teaching through mandatory work from home. Taking into account the specificities of the Italian academic environment and using the Job Demand-Resource-Recovery model, the present study provides, through an online survey, for the first time a description of...

Background: Compared to healthcare workers and teleworkers, occupational wellbeing of employees who continued or suddenly returned to work during the COVID-19 pandemic have received less attention thus far. Using the Job Demand-Resource model as a framework, the present study aimed at evaluating the role of job demands and job and personal resourc...

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of humor in working environments in which professionals are constantly exposed to death, bereavement and to human suffering and its use in negotiating work experiences by workers. This study includes a qualitative research design with semi-structured interviews and focus groups as research tools....

Purpose Building on prior studies on the role of health-related and job-related issues in affecting presenteeism, the present study tested a mediation model of the relationship between job demands and presenteeism by exploring the mediation effect of menopausal symptoms. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through a self-report questio...

(1) Background: The increasing presence of employed women undergoing menopause has stimulated a growing corpus of research highlighting the complex relationship between menopause and work. Nevertheless, little is known regarding the mechanism by which menopause affects work ability and work-related well-being. In order to fill this gap in the liter...

Safety at work, both physical and psychological, plays a central role for workers and organizations during the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19. Building on the job demands-resources (JD-R) model applied to safety at work, in this study we proposed that the perceived risk of being infected with COVID-19 at work can be conceptualized as a job demand (i....

The funeral and mortuary sector, including funeral homes, cemeteries and crematoria, is a largely neglected sector in regard to the study of occupational factors that can affect the quality of working life. The present study aimed at overcoming this gap by investigating job demands and resources that may affect burnout levels. Data were collected t...

Introduction: Dealing with customers has increasingly became a risk factor that organisations should be aware of. Having to deal with difficult customers, pupils, patients it has been found to be the second most frequent reported risk factor in the recent 2019 ESENER survey (61%, up from 58%), just after repetitive hand or arm movements. Objectiv...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic led the worldwide healthcare system to a severe crisis in which personnel paid the major costs. Many studies were promptly dedicated to the physical and psychological consequences of the COVID-19 exposure among healthcare employees, whereas the research on the other working populations has been substantially ignor...

Owing to the temporary nature of their job position, postdoctoral researchers (postdocs) are among those workers in the academic sector who experience the most job insecurity as well as high levels of turnover intention and disengagement. The present study improves the extant knowledge on the effect of job insecurity on postdocs’ cynicism and dedic...

The paper focuses on the concept of cultural competence and has as the main purpose to explore: a) the perception and representation of Italian midwives regarding the reproductive health and the childbirth cultures of immigrant women; b) strengths and weaknesses of their professional practices. Twenty midwives were interviewed. Data were analyzed u...

Background: One of the most difficult problems faced by health care professionals is experiencing verbal and physical abuse from patients and their family members. Some studies have shown that health care workers, especially nurses, are up to 16 times more likely to be subject to violence than other workers. Aims: The aim of this study was to an...

The present study uses a revised version of the Motivation–Hygiene theory as a theoretical framework to examine the cross-lagged associations in a sample of Italian pre-kindergarten (pre-k) teachers between job satisfaction and two types of psychosocial characteristics of the work environment: motivating factors (i.e., job demands, work meaning, an...

The literature on Orthorexia Nervosa (ON) rapidly grew in recent years, highlighting the perverse and paradoxical aspects of healthy eating. In this review, authors examine the different meanings of ON, the proposals of diagnostic criteria and evaluation tools, and the most promising research tracks that, if developed, will allow to fully understan...

Introduction: Due to the aging workforce, it will become even more common for organizations to count, among their employees, women who are dealing with menopause. To date, no knowledge is available regarding the work ability among menopausal women. With this view, the aim of the present study was to identify work-related psychosocial factors assoc...

Background The double role of caregiver-employee (CE) defines those workers who simultaneously serve as an informal, unpaid care provider for sick, disabled, or elderly relatives, and it is a situation that is on the increase in most western countries. Providing informal caregiving can lead to detrimental effects on emotional well-being and several...

The aim of this study was to analyse the occupational well‐being of academics by using a person‐centred approach. Data was collected by an online self‐report questionnaire involving the academic population of a large Italian university. Cluster analysis showed the presence of four significantly different clusters, that were labelled engaged‐satisfi...

Background: Despite the growing presence of menopausal women in workplaces, studies aimed at exploring the link between menopausal symptoms and job well-being are scarce. In the interest of addressing this gap, the present study aimed to explore whether menopausal symptoms might contribute to increased levels of burnout and whether this relationsh...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02132.].

The school context is exposed to several demanding factors relating to student and family needs and external evaluative processes of students' learning and process outcomes, such as abilities in planning training courses and a learning environment. However, there is a need to develop tools that adequately support schools in making self-assessment e...

Gratitude may be defined as a personal positive tendency to recognize and respond with gratitude to positive experiences. It has been extensively described within personal relationship literature, showing its correlations with life satisfaction and decreased psychopathology. We propose here to consider gratitude as both a personal and an organizati...

University organizational contexts have been changing significantly in recent years, and academic staff are expected to manage larger workloads at an increased pace. This can threaten their well-being and exacerbate work-related stress—possibly creating negative impacts on their mental and physical states. Surprisingly, academic occupational psycho...

Although previous evidence suggests an association between work ability and burnout, no study has been specifically dedicated at establishing which is the directionality of the relationship between these two important constructs either in educational or in other occupational contexts. Studies shedding light on the directionality of this relationshi...

Bank employees, especially video display terminal (VDT) operators, are constantly exposed to various occupational risks, such as the adoption of awkward postures, repetitive finger movements, and utilization of software with poor usability, which may lead to computer visual syndrome, tension headache, lower back pain, and/or stress, which compromis...

Universities perform very demanding tasks within a workplace characterized by a critical psychosocial environment. Against this backdrop, the aim of this study is to extend the current literature on the job sustainability of faculty professors, examine the associations of certain job resources (meaningfulness of work, reward) and job demands (work...

Background Past studies in the teaching context provided evidence of the role of mindfulness-based intervention in improving occupational wellbeing. This study aims to increase the extant knowledge by testing the mechanism that links teachers’ mindfulness at work to occupational wellbeing. Rooted in the job demand–resource model, the mindfulness tr...

The aim of this study was to test a model including relationships among internal and external violence, workplace violence-prevention climate, exhaustion, and intention to leave (ITL) in a sample of nurses. Data were collected by a self-report questionnaire involving nurses ( n = 313) from two multispecialist hospitals in Italy. The survey was cros...

In recent years, the average age of workers has risen. Because of that, work ability is reducing in many sectors, especially in a public context. Given the above, it is necessary to investigate the individual and organisational resources that can play a role in the protection of work ability. This study investigates the work ability of administrati...

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a Functional Somatic Syndrome characterized by widespread mus-culoskeletal pain, fatigue, sleep disturbance and psychological distress. The aim of the present paper is to discuss the application of the brief dynamic therapy in FM. This therapy is inspired on the Brief Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy model, which is based on the c...

Per ricordare Laura Metitieri, recentemente scomparsa. Il contributo, che abbiamo sviluppato nel 2010 a valle di una riflessione collegiale sulla ricerca-azione condotta con altri colleghi dell’area lavoro-organizzazioni, si sofferma - attraverso la rielaborazione attenta della letteratura inglese e francese e proponendo una linea interpretativa or...

Nel corso degli ultimi anni si è diffusa in Italia, sulla base di alcune normative in seguito ricordate, la prassi di monitorare le condizioni di benessere dei lavoratori e delle lavoratrici all’interno delle Pubbliche Amministrazioni (PA). Tale prassi, vincolata all’uso del questionario di cui verranno presentate le dimensioni soggiacenti e le pro...

Background: Relating to the macro-level changes and the increasing complexity of the academic system, a growing number of studies began to investigate the perceived working context impact on well-being and job satisfaction of academics. A unique duality characterizes this context: academics cannot be longer defined as stress-free, but at the same t...

This study aimed at the assessment of psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Spanish Burnout Inventory (SBI-Ita) in a sample of Italian teachers and the analysis of burnout profiles based on a model that includes four dimensions: Enthusiasm toward job, Psychological exhaustion, Indolence, and Guilt. A self-reported questionnaire was...

Introduction: The aging of workers generally implies an increased number of workers with health problems or psychological diseases because of the growing distance between personal resources and job demands; the first may decrease, while the second are stable. In the preschool setting, the demands remain constant because children are always aged 0-...

Background: Nursery school teachers are subjected to unavoidable physical demands, such as picking up children, putting them in the cradle, changing diapers etc. The potential detrimental effects on the workers' musculoskeletal system are amplified by the aging of the working population observed in recent years. Objectives: To describe the psych...

The aim of the study is to identify relationships between levels of burnout in a sample of Italian teachers in middle school and the quality of the classroom relational climate experienced from their students. Method: analysis identified three different teachers' burnout profiles, defined as "Enthusiastic", "Exhausted-Indifferent" and "Exhausted-Gu...

The study presents a brief review on Organizational Wellbeing studies in the Italian public sector, and a secondary analysis of existing data collected with the questionnaire proposed by the National Anti-Corruption Authority and administrated to technical and administrative workers in some Italian Universities. This analysis was aimed to: compare...

Background: Based on the conservation of resource (COR) theory by Hobfoll, the aim of the present study was to test whether the relationships among relational demands, work meaning, and intention to leave vary as a function of the presence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). Method: The study was cross-sectional and non-randomized. Analyses wer...

Introduction Work ability constitutes one of the most studied well-being indicators related to work. Past research highlighted the relationship with work-related resources and demands, and personal resources. However, no studies highlight the role of collective and self-efficacy beliefs in sustaining work ability. Purpose The purpose of this study...

The study aimed to measure burnout among librarians in a city in Northern Italy, and to identify which demands and resources influence emotional exhaustion and cynicism. In particular, it focused on the relationship with patrons, since in the service sector users are mostly studied as a cause of stress and rarely considered as a source of support f...

Objectives. The present study, using the conservation of resources theory as a theoretical framework, aims to establish whether work-related bullying is associated with the development of two different types of work-to-private-life interference, i.e., time based and strain based. The study also aims to test whether these relationships are mediated...

According to the Environmental Bubble Theory, tourists perform a series of strategies in order to remain anchored to their residential spots. The environmental bubble is constituted by a sort of social pellicule able to immunize tourists from the identity/cultural attacks which the visit to a foreign country implies. Such a pellicule is activated b...

Purpose Concerns about change, a measure of the perception about future losses due to organizational change, have received scarce attention within the organizational change literature. This study addresses some relevant questions still unexplored regarding, on the one hand, the relationship between concerns about change and employees’ burnout and...

Objective: Demographic changes involving western countries and later retirements due to the recent pension reforms induce a gradual aging of the workforce. This imply an increasing number of workers with health problems and a decreasing of ability to work. In this direction, the present study aims at examining the role of job and personal resources...

Aim: To examine the relationship of co-worker incivility with organisational efficiency, workload and intention to leave in nursing samples from two different countries, the USA and Italy. Background: Organisational efficiency has received little attention as a possible correlate of co-worker incivility in the nursing management literature. Stud...

RIASSUNTO. Mentre sul piano della letteratura internazionale il numero degli studi che hanno affrontato il tema della qualità della vita in riferimento alla polizia penitenziaria è abbastanza elevato, si evidenzia una povertà di studi per Italia. Pertanto, il presente studio si pone come obiettivo di individuare tra diverse tipologie di fattori psi...

The purpose of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Spanish Burnout Inventory (SBI) in a sample of Italian health professionals. The sample consisted of 695 participants: 453 nursing professionals and 242 physicians. Regarding the gender, 451 were women (64.9%) and 244 were men (35.1%). The SBI is composed of 20 items distrib...

Objectives: While in the international literature, research on burnout predictors among correctional officers is well developed, as regards Italy there is a paucity of empirical evidence. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to identify, among various types of psychosocial factors, the burnout (i.e., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization...

Introduzione: La produzione scientifica sull'ortoressia nervosa (ON) è rapidamente cresciuta. Tuttavia, nelle ricerche non è mai analizzato il pattern di valori ad essa associato, sebbene gli studi di prevalenza tra vegetariani/vegani lascino presumere che abbia basi etiche ecologiste. Inoltre, nella definizione di ON (Bratman,1997) e nelle propost...

Feelings of attachment to school represent one of the main adjustment-related factors during early adolescence. The aim of this study was to identify different patterns of students’ experience of attachment to school through a person-centred approach by analysing differences in socio-emotional and academic adjustment scores and gender- and age-rela...

Mobile-Learning techniques represent new horizons within the educational field that enhances more learner-centered pedagogical approach in front of the more typical educator-centered. Knowing teachers' perception and attitudes toward the use of M-Learning could facilitale a mure :succe:ssful implementatlon In the learning environment. The aim of th...

Tra i recenti esempi di attenzione al Benessere organizzativo (BO) nella Pubblica Amministrazione (PA) italiana vi è il modello proposto dall'Autorità Nazionale Anticorruzione (ANAC) 1 per "rilevare il benessere organizzativo, il grado di condivisione del sistema di valutazione, nonché la della del superiore gerarchico da parte del personale" (D.Lg...

Background: Work ability (WA) describes the physical and intellectual resources on which individuals can rely to respond to work demands. While several studies have investigated the protective role of work-related psychosocial factors on WA, only a few have examined differences across age cohorts. Moreover, few studies have investigated WA in the...

Background. Burnout is an important risk among healthcare workers. Therefore, the availability of reliable and valid instruments to measure burnout is crucial in helping healthcare management to determine the dimension of the problem inside an organization and to prevent it and its consequences through appropriate intervention programs. Aim. The pu...

The oncological illness of a child puts the whole family in front of important physical and emotional stress often resulting in imbalances and changes both on the emotional and social family aspects. In order to make a proper screening of patients and families and to make a proper sending to the specialist from the professional team (as well as to...

Background. Burnout is an important risk among healthcare workers. Therefore, the availability of reliable and valid instruments to measure burnout is crucial in helping healthcare management to determine the dimension of the problem inside an organization and to prevent it and its consequences through appropriate intervention programs. Aim. The pu...

La malattia oncologica di un bambino espone l’intera famiglia a condizioni di forte stress fisico ed emotivo comportando spesso disequilibri e cambiamenti sia sul versante affettivo sia sociale. Al fine di effettuare un corretto screening dei pazienti oncologici e delle famiglie e un appropriato invio allo specialista da parte dell’equipe professio...

Background: It is recognized that teaching in a preschool context is physically demanding. Despite this, the consequences of physical demands on psychophysical health (including work ability) are significantly understudied among kindergarten teachers. Objectives: The aim of the present study is to examine (a) the association between physical dem...

Social support is an important resource for reducing the risks of stress and burnout at work. It seems to be particularly helpful for educational and social professionals. The constant and intense relationships with users that characterize this kind of service can be very demanding, increasing stress and leading to burnout. While significant attent...

Background The present study aims at investigating whether and how (1) job demands and job resources are associated with work-to-private-life interference (WLI) and (2) job resources moderate the relationship between job demands and WLI. Methods Data were collected by a self-report questionnaire from three hospitals in Italy. The sample consisted...