Explaining the links between workload, distress, and work–family conflict among school employees: Physical, cognitive, and emotional fatigue.

This study examined the intraindividual relationships among workload and affective distress; cognitive, physical, and emotional fatigue; and work–family conflict among school employees. Using a repeated-measure, within-person research design, the authors found that work demands and affective distress, as well as cognitive, emotional, and physical fatigue, were associated with experienced work–family conflict. However, the effects of work demands and affective distress on work–family conflict were mediated mostly by participant reports of emotional fatigue when the three types of fatigue were considered together. Importantly, emotional fatigue was associated with both self-reported and spouse-reported work–family conflict. Overall, the results support a resource depletion framework for how workload and job distress in an educational setting can affect work–family conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)