With a little help of my peers. The supportive role of online contacts for the unemployed

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of peer support among disadvantaged groups: A rapid scoping review

Objective

To explore the current state of knowledge and evidence about peer support for various disadvantaged groups; to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of peer support to critically reflect on peer support within health and social services.

Methods

A rapid scoping review was conducted according to Arksey and O'Malley's framework, aiming to identify eligible studies in PubMed, APA PsychInfo, Education Resources Information Center, Cochrane Library, Academic Search Premier, ScienceDirect, Directory of Open Access Journals, ResearchGate, WorldCat, and Google Scholar. According to Rodgers' concept analysis steps and the SWOT model, data was reported using thematic synthesis.

Results

Forty-five studies were included, describing a variety of peer support initiatives among groups of young migrants and unsupervised minors, young adults with autism, people with (mental) health problems, foster/shelter families, vulnerable pregnant women, people outside the labour force, older adults, and homeless people. The strength of peer support is its positive effect on the quality of life among vulnerable people. The weakness is represented by peers both being too involved and focused on personal interest or by peers lacking expertise and knowledge. Opportunities for peer support are mutual learning, the anticipated long-term effects, and the potential to facilitate social inclusion. Culture, language barriers, drop-out rates, securing sustainability, and peers' lack of time and commitment are regarded as threats to peer support.

Conclusion

Although peer support offers good outcomes for various groups of vulnerable people, the weaknesses and threats need to be considered to provide and proliferate peer support.

The drivers and effects of burnout within an information technology work context: a job demands-resources framework

Purpose

The purpose of this empirical study is to explore the drivers and effects of a multidimensional conceptualization of burnout for information technology (IT) personnel using the job demands-resources framework.

Design/methodology/approach

Using survey data from 247 IT professionals, the authors analyzed our model using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), a composite-based method.

Findings

The authors find that job demands and job resources differently influence the dimensions of burnout, and the burnout dimensions influenced turnover intention (leave the organization) and turnaway intention (leave the field) except for cynicism, which did not affect turnover intention. The authors’ findings suggest that managers and human resource professionals may want to look beyond managing work exhaustion and consider focusing on the professional efficacy dimension of burnout to keep their IT professionals from leaving the organization and the IT industry.

Originality/value

This study highlights the need for researchers in the information systems field to rethink using exhaustion as a proxy for the burnout construct as focusing on work exhaustion does not tell the full story for IT professionals. Additionally, the findings indicate that job-related burnout affects not only IT professional's turnover intention but also turnaway intention. Last, psychosocial mentoring did not directly influence any of the burnout components but indirectly influenced all three components.

Digital Divide in Perceived Benefits of Online Health Care and Social Welfare Services: National Cross-Sectional Survey Study

Background

The number of online services in health care is increasing rapidly in developed countries. Users are expected to take a more skilled and active role in taking care of their health and prevention of ill health. This induces risks that users (especially those who need the services the most) will drop out of digital services, resulting in a digital divide or exclusion. To ensure wide and equal use of online services, all users must experience them as beneficial.

Objective

This study aimed to examine associations of (1) demographics (age, gender, and degree of urbanization), (2) self-rated health, (3) socioeconomic position (education, experienced financial hardship, labor market position, and living alone), (4) social participation (voting, satisfaction with relationships, and keeping in touch with friends and family members), and (5) access, skills, and extent of use of information and communication technologies (ICT) with perceived benefits of online health care and social welfare services. Associations were examined separately for perceived health, economic, and collaboration benefits.

Methods

We used a large random sample representative of the Finnish population including 4495 (56.77% women) respondents aged between 20 and 97 years. Analyses of covariance were used to examine the associations of independent variables with perceived benefits.

Results

Access to online services, ICT skills, and extent of use were associated with all examined benefits of online services. ICT skills seemed to be the most important factor. Poor self-rated health was also consistently associated with lower levels of perceived benefits. Similarly, those who were keeping in touch with their friends and relatives at least once a week perceived online services more often beneficial in all the examined dimensions. Those who had experienced financial hardship perceived fewer health and economic benefits than others. Those who were satisfied with their relationships reported higher levels of health and collaboration benefits compared with their counterparts. Also age, education, and degree of urbanization had some statistically significant associations with benefits but they seemed to be at least partly explained by differences in access, skills, and extent of use of online services.

Conclusions

According to our results, providing health care services online has the potential to reinforce existing social and health inequalities. Our findings suggest that access to online services, skills to use them, and extent of use play crucial roles in perceiving them as beneficial. Moreover, there is a risk of digital exclusion among those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, in poor health, or socially isolated. In times when health and social services are increasingly offered online, this digital divide may predispose people with high needs for services to exclusion from them.