How does day-to-day stress appraisal relate to coping among office workers in academia? An ecological momentary assessment study

Existing literature indicates that academic staff experience increasing levels of work stress. This study investigated associations between day-to-day threat and challenge appraisal and day-to-day problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping, and seeking social support among academic office workers. This study is based on an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) design with a 15-working day data collection period utilising our self-developed STRAW smartphone application. A total of 55 office workers from academic institutions in Belgium (n = 29) and Slovenia (n = 26) were included and 3665 item measurements were analysed. Participants were asked approximately every 90 min about their appraisal of stressful events (experienced during the working day) and their coping styles. For data analysis, we used an unstructured covariance matrix in our linear mixed models. Challenge appraisal predicted problem-focused coping and threat appraisal predicted emotion-focused coping. Our findings suggest an association between threat appraisal as well as challenge appraisal and seeking social support. Younger and female workers chose social support more often as a coping style. While working from home, participants were less likely to seek social support. The findings of our EMA study confirm previous research on the relationship between stress appraisal and coping with stress. Participants reported seeking social support less while working from home compared to working at the office, making the work location an aspect that deserves further research.

The association between day-to-day stress experiences and work-life interference among office workers in academia: an ecological momentary assessment study

PURPOSE

We investigated relations between day-to-day job demands, job control, job strain, social support at work, and day-to-day work-life interference among office workers in academia.

METHODS

This study is based on a 15-working day data collection period using an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) implemented in our self-developed STRAW smartphone application. We recruited office workers from two academic settings in Belgium and Slovenia. Participants were repeatedly asked to complete EMAs including work stressors and work interfering with personal life (WIPL) as well as personal life interfering with work (PLIW). We applied fixed-effect model testing with random intercepts to investigate within- and between-participant levels.

RESULTS

We included 55 participants with 2261 analyzed observations in this study. Our data showed that researchers with a PhD reported higher WIPL compared to administrative and technical staff (β = 0.37, p < 0.05). We found significant positive associations between job demands (β = 0.53, p < 0.001), job control (β = 0.19, p < 0.01), and job strain (β = 0.61, p < 0.001) and WIPL. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction effect between job control and social support at work on WIPL (β = - 0.24, p < 0.05). Additionally, a significant negative association was found between job control and PLIW (β = - 0.20, p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

Based on our EMA study, higher job demands and job strain were correlated with higher WIPL. Furthermore, we found associations going in opposite directions; higher job control was correlated with higher WIPL and lower PLIW. Higher job control leading to higher imbalance stands out as a novel result.

Work environment risk factors causing day-to-day stress in occupational settings: a systematic review

Background

While chronic workplace stress is known to be associated with health-related outcomes like mental and cardiovascular diseases, research about day-to-day occupational stress is limited. This systematic review includes studies assessing stress exposures as work environment risk factors and stress outcomes, measured via self-perceived questionnaires and physiological stress detection. These measures needed to be assessed repeatedly or continuously via Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) or similar methods carried out in real-world work environments, to be included in this review. The objective was to identify work environment risk factors causing day-to-day stress.

Methods

The search strategies were applied in seven databases resulting in 11833 records after deduplication, of which 41 studies were included in a qualitative synthesis. Associations were evaluated by correlational analyses.

Results

The most commonly measured work environment risk factor was work intensity, while stress was most often framed as an affective response. Measures from these two dimensions were also most frequently correlated with each other and most of their correlation coefficients were statistically significant, making work intensity a major risk factor for day-to-day workplace stress.

Conclusions

This review reveals a diversity in methodological approaches in data collection and data analysis. More studies combining self-perceived stress exposures and outcomes with physiological measures are warranted.

Structural Basis of Epitope Recognition by Heavy-Chain Camelid Antibodies

Truncated versions of heavy-chain antibodies (HCAbs) from camelids, also termed nanobodies, comprise only one-tenth the mass of conventional antibodies, yet retain similar, high binding affinities for the antigens. Here we analyze a large data set of nanobody-antigen crystal structures and investigate how nanobody-antigen recognition compares to the one by conventional antibodies. We find that nanobody paratopes are enriched in aromatic residues just like conventional antibodies, but additionally, they also bear a more hydrophobic character. Most striking differences were observed in the characteristics of the antigen's epitope. Unlike conventional antibodies, nanobodies bind to more rigid, concave, conserved and structured epitopes enriched with aromatic residues. Nanobodies establish fewer interactions with the antigens compared to conventional antibodies, and we speculate that high binding affinities are achieved due to less unfavorable conformational and more favorable solvation entropy contributions. We observed that interactions with antigen are mediated not only by three CDR loops but also by numerous residues from the nanobody framework. These residues are not distributed uniformly; rather, they are concentrated into four structurally distinct regions and mediate mostly charged interactions. Our findings suggest that in some respects nanobody-antigen interactions are more similar to the general protein-protein interactions rather than antibody-antigen interactions.