About this Research Topic

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a significant burden on the health care system. The WHO has called for action to reduce its impact on the mental and physical health of health workers after working conditions changed radically during this time. Frontline workers are facing many stressful situations at work during the pandemic as a result of increased workload, longer working hours, limited resting periods, and uncertainty, as well as isolation. All of these psychosocial risks and many others that are created in working environments may increase stress levels and fatigue in employees. Poor psychosocial working environment may have a considerable impact on workplace productivity through increased absenteeism, low job engagement, and reduced job performance. It is not only necessary to identify which psychosocial factors were affected the most due to pandemic but also provide managers practical guidance with measures and actions to protect the health and well-being of workers. Studies of exposures to assess psychosocial working conditions among employees can help us understand the prevalence and severity of stress-related health problems.

The psychosocial working environment is a collective term that covers the interaction between people in a workplace, the work of the individual and its impact on the employee, organizational conditions, and the culture of the organization. Work and working conditions have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Factors of psychosocial burden associated with COVID-19 should be identified and correlated with stress, anxiety, and depression. Our goal is to assess psychosocial working conditions in different working environments, identify the existence of psychosocial burden, and correlate psychosocial factors with level of stress, anxiety, burnout, depression, musculoskeletal disorders. Moreover, actions and measures that managers could apply in order to create a positive working environment in the post-COVID-19 era is another aspect of our goals. The interrelationship between psychosocial occupational working conditions and stress, anxiety, burnout needs to be explored more, in order to better propose proper interventions that can improve working conditions in the post-covid era and develop a working environment that promotes job satisfaction and influences intention to leave.

In this Research Topic we would like to encourage authors to submit articles that describe research results related to the following topics:

• Psychosocial working environment during COVID-19

• The prevalence of psychosocial burden and stress, anxiety, or burnout in the workplace

• Workers' intention to leave their workplace due to problems during and following the COVID-19 pandemic

• The proposal of initiatives to be taken into the workplace in the post-COVID-19 era, including psychosocial support services and counselling programmes

• Lessons learned throughout COVID-19 that can support mental health

Keywords: psychosocial risk, SARS-CoV2, psychosocial burden, working conditions, workplace, work environment, mental health

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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