Job-Related Affective Well-Being in Emergency Medical Dispatchers: The Role of Workload, Job Autonomy, and Performance Feedback

performance feedback quantitative workloadProtecting affective well-being is especially important for employees working in stressful settings.Building on the job characteristics model and the job demands-resources model, we analyzed the role of job demands and resources in predicting job-related affective well-being of emergency medical dispatchers (EMDs).We concentrated on quantitative workload as an important job demand, and job autonomy and performance feedback as job resources.We also tested the buffering effect of job resources on the relationship between job demands and job-related affective well-being.A sample of 335 EMDs from different Polish emergency dispatch centers, matching the population of EMDs in Poland, filled in a set of questionnaires.We applied multiple regression analysis to test the effects of job demands and resources on job-related affective well-being.We analyzed the interaction effects using the PROCESS macro.The results demonstrated that the higher the EMDs' workload, the lower their job-related affective well-being.The opposite effect occurred for job resources: the higher the job autonomy and performance feedback, the higher the EMDs' affective well-being.However, although these job resources are related positively to job-related affective well-being, they do not reduce the negative effect of quantitative workload.Efforts aimed at designing the work of medical emergency centers such that they offer EMDs access to feedback from managers and colleagues and autonomy at work, together with reducing their job overload are likely to facilitate job-related affective well-being in EMDs.Experiences of high workload are not easily balanced by access to more job resources.