Keywords
Digital workers, resilience, pandemic-related stress, covid-19, thematic approach
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Rahmat H, Cheang AWO, Tan CH et al. Exploring pandemic-related stress and resilience among digital workers: A basic interpretive qualitative study [version 1; peer review: 2 approved with reservations]. F1000Research 2022, 11:384 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.73623.1)
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Brief Report
Exploring pandemic-related stress and resilience among digital workers: A basic interpretive qualitative study
[version 1; peer review: 2 approved with reservations]
PUBLISHED 01 Apr 2022
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This article is included in the Research Synergy Foundation gateway.
Abstract
Corresponding author:
Hawa Rahmat
Competing interests:
No competing interests were disclosed.
Grant information:
This research is supported by the Malaysia Ministry of Higher Education’s Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) [FRGS/1/2019/SS09/MMU/02/3] led by the fourth author.
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Copyright:
© 2022 Rahmat H et al.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
How to cite: Rahmat H, Cheang AWO, Tan CH et al. Exploring pandemic-related stress and resilience among digital workers: A basic interpretive qualitative study [version 1; peer review: 2 approved with reservations]. F1000Research 2022, 11:384 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.73623.1)
First published: 01 Apr 2022, 11:384 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.73623.1)
Latest published: 01 Apr 2022, 11:384 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.73623.1)
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Introduction
The study aims to explore the pandemic-related stress experienced by digital workers and their resilience and ability to thrive during the pandemic.
Digital workers during the pandemic
Digital workers are virtual workers responsible for enhancing and augmenting human work by combining artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation and analytics to automate business functions from end to end.1 Although this is the way of the future, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this transformation by increasing the number of professions moving towards the digital domain since early 2020. This has shifted the nature of employment for most occupations around the world. As a result, most who have to work virtually (online) from home can be classified as a “digital worker”. These workers are mostly employed in high-skilled occupations that allow for flexibility in working from home.2 The Department of Statistics (DOS) recently released the data from a study on the impact of COVID-19 which illustrates that a large number of workers (44%) work from home.
For companies to ensure their long-term viability and survivability during the pandemic, workers must work from home (WFH) and adhere to strict standard operating procedures (SOP). Working from home often involves frequent online meetings (or sometimes a few meetings at once), sitting for long hours, increased screen time, communication challenges and distress due to virtual environments. Those working from home often also work more than the standard nine to five office hours without having clear boundaries for their time. This abrupt shift in the nature of work has caused anxiety and distress among digital workers. Their resiliency despite these challenges is a very interesting issue to be explored.
Pandemic-related stress
A study by Lai, Ma, and Wang indicated a significant number of healthcare workers experienced pandemic-related stress.3 A total of 1257 healthcare workers from 34 hospitals in multiple regions of China participated in their study. The hospitals were equipped with fever clinics and wards to treat COVID-19 patients. It was found that women, nurses, and those in Wuhan experienced symptoms of depression, anxiety, insomnia and distress. Mosheva et al. specifically studied pandemic-related stress and resilience among physicians during the COVID-19 pandemic.5 Their study surveyed 1106 Israeli physicians during the COVID-19 outbreak. The results of the study showed an inverse relationship between resilience and anxiety. Mental exhaustion, anxiety about being infected, anxiety about COVID-19 affecting family members and sleep difficulties were all found to have a positive relationship with anxiety scores.
The studies by Lai et al. and Mosheva et al. demonstrated the reality faced by healthcare personnel.3,5 The current study, on the other hand, is focused on “digital workers” who have experienced a rapid change in the digitalization of work and education and a shift to work-from-home (WFH) approaches.17 Therefore, the study aims to explore digital workers’ pandemic-related stress, due to the high percentage of jobs that have gone digital.
Resilience
Resilience is defined by the presence of protective personal, societal, and family factors and institutional safety nets which enable people to withstand adversity.4,6,7 However, the concept of resiliency also includes dangerous, adverse and life-threatening conditions which affect individual vulnerability. Therefore, the resiliency of a person at any moment is determined by the ratio between the presence of protective factors and the presence of hazardous circumstances. Some people exhibit a remarkable ability to withstand great stress, torture, trauma or disaster, known as “resiliency.” In other words, resilience can be understood as possessing a set of adaptive characteristics which allows an individual to cope and to recover from (or even thrive after) experiencing stress or trauma.
A qualitative descriptive study was conducted by Ching, Cheung, Hegney, and Rees to explore the stressors and coping strategies of nursing students with differing levels of resilience and burnout during their clinical placement.13 The results showed that students with high resiliency scores in the quantitative phase of the research tended to display self-consciousness while students who had low scores of resilience tended to use self-blame. This study demonstrated that when faced with the stressors from their clinical placement, students with different burnout and resilience scores used various coping strategies. This poses the question whether a similar pattern appears for digital workers, as well as whether these workers can thrive despite the uncertainty and stress around their current state.
Methods
Study design
This qualitative research project used a thematic approach to gauge pandemic-related stressors and resilience in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. 15 participants (digital workers) from various backgrounds were interviewed using a -structured interview.16 In the qualitative approach, convenient sampling is used for data collection. The criteria of the participants were they must currently be home workers, who were normal full-time workers before the pandemic. They have to be working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the criteria, two digital workers were identified and recruited through the contact of one of our research team’s researchers in HR. Then the rest of the samples were selected through snowball sampling in which research participants were asked to assist the researchers in identifying other potential participants with the said criteria. 15 home workers participated in the study after the researchers reach feedback saturation.19,22
Data collection
Data collection in qualitative research allows the researcher to answer pertinent questions, assess results, and forecast future probability and trends. Important demographic background information was also collected to gain insight into different points of view regarding pandemic-related stress and resilience among home workers. The method of data collection was a structured interview. The structured interview questions were developed based on the existing literature review and the pandemic situation. A structured interview is a kind of interviewing method in which all candidates are asked the same preset questions in the same sequence and these are then assessed using a standardized scoring system. The effectiveness of this strategy is nearly double that of a standard interview. Two sets of structured questions were asked. The first question was on pandemic-related stress: “Could you tell me what terrified you the most during the outbreak and why?” The second question was on the respondents’ resilience: “How do you encounter with this emotional disturbance?” Respondents had the option of answering in English or Malay, which would be translated following transcribing. The interviews lasted between 30 and 45 minutes. Data collection started on March 3, 2021 and ended on April 15, 2021. The interviews took place through telephone conversation which were recorded using pen and paper. Before each interview, informed consent was obtained from each participant. Participants were free to withdraw from the interview session if they did not want to be interviewed.
Analysis
To validate the transcribed data, thorough verification was performed beginning with data input, data coding, and anonymization of excerpts. The transcribed data was also shown to the respondents to ensure the accuracy of the data. The study’s validity was further assessed via triangulation, which entails many people analysing the same data. The researcher selects moderators to ensure that the data is not skewed by what the researcher wants to see or hear in order to help overcome personal bias. Three individuals reviewed the interview questions and data to check its validity.
The respondents’ interviews were analyzed according to Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six steps for thematic analysis.18 Adapted from Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis method, the first step involved transcription of the recorded interviews, reading through the text, and making initial notes in order to become familiar with the data. Second, sections of texts were highlighted and assigned codes to describe the content. Third, the data was then collated together into groups as identified by the codes. Fourth, patterns among the codes were identified and themes were formed. Any vague, and/or irrelevant codes were discarded. Those steps were conducted by HR with help of a research assistant. Fifth, the themes were reviewed by all the researchers to make sure that they accurately represented the data by comparing the themes with the data set. Sixth, the list of themes were named and defined to produce a coherent and substantial argument which applied to the facts obtained from the respondents’ own experiences. As a result, there were five themes extracted from the interview around pandemic-related stress: anxiety about COVID-19 infections, mental exhaustion, physical exhaustion, feeling insecure and uncertain about financial concerns. Meanwhile, four themes were extracted for resilience, which was based on Werner and Smith11: the active approach towards problem-solving, the tendency to maintain a positive outlook, staying focused on responsibility for others to manage one’s well-being and a strong reliance on faith to maintain a positive life view.
Consent
Ethical approval was granted by the Research Ethics Committee (REC) of Technology Transfer Office (TTO) (approval number: EA0752021).
Informed oral consent was obtained from the respondents for the study and usage of data. The interviews took place over the phone and the informants were told that their data would be kept private and used solely for research purposes. The informants were also assured that they could stop the interview session at any point. The participants were sent a copy of the manuscript and approved the excerpts that were included for publication. The participants consented to the excerpts of their interviews being shared publicly, but not the full transcripts.
Results
About 40% (6) males and 60% (9) females participated in the study. Table 1 shows the detailed demographic background of the participants. The full dataset can be found in the Underlying data.16
Table 1. Demographic background of the participants.
The findings of the study provide valuable input on the pandemic-related stressors among these digital workers and their resiliency during the pandemic. The five themes extracted from the interviews included anxiety about COVID-19 infections, mental exhaustion, physical exhaustion, feeling insecure and uncertain about financial concerns as shown in Table 2. Excerpts from the interview transcripts can be found in the Underlying data.16
Table 2. Themes of pandemic-related stress factors.
| No. | Pandemic-related stress factors |
|---|---|
| 1 | Anxiety about COVID-19 infection |
| 2 | Mental exhaustion |
| 3 | Physical exhaustion |
| 4 | Feeling insecure about the future |
| 5 | Financial concerns |
The first theme was anxiety about being infected with COVID-19. The respondents felt anxious not only about being infected with the virus but also had the fear of infecting family members after they returned home from work. At the same time, they also developed anxiety about losing their job, losing a loved one, and losing family members as confessed by one participant #3, who said “I was afraid of losing family due to COVID-19. Knowing some of my relatives and close friend died due to COVID-19 make me felt anxiety and worried”. One of the respondents was a recovered COVID-19 patient. These experiences of anxiety were seen even after the recovery, as mentioned by participant #7, “I developed post COVID-19 anxiety after being infected with it last 3 months. I called it as fear of long COVID symptoms. At that time, I was pregnant and now I still have a bit of asthmatic symptom. My worries are more towards my yet to be born baby”. The second theme was mental exhaustion. The respondents experienced sleep difficulties, especially working mothers with young children. Since home-based teaching and learning was implemented, most parents experienced issues with childcare as schools and childcare facilities were closed. The implementation of working from home coupled with home-based teaching and learning turned out to be very challenging for most parents and has affected their work efficiency and life satisfaction. Participant #10 claimed “I felt like I neglected my children’s needs and wants because I was focusing more on my work rather than looking after them. I felt like they were already at home, I forgot that they still need my attention and affection. Actually, I have a problem with my own time management. I am always unable to finish work on time. This situation makes me stressed and I felt I have neglected my children. I feel sad, guilty, and bad towards my children.” In short, parents had to take on the role of teachers at home while concurrently struggling with their own work meetings and deadlines. They experienced emotional distress from multitasking their responsibilities.
The third theme was physical exhaustion. The participants expressed that they perceived their employers had increased the workload because they thought workers had extra time since they were WFH. This created pandemic-related stress among the workers because there is no clear boundary regarding their work hours. The participants found themselves frequently working longer than the typical nine to five office hours. The effects of multitasking also led to physical cramps or exhaustion, and in one participant’s case, obesity. As highlighted by participant #10, “I felt physically tired and cramped. Even though I work from home, I felt like I was working 24 hours a day, with the kids playing tumble and the noises from their gadgets made me collapse physically and emotionally. I also felt that I have gain weight because I ate a lot when I am under pressure. I just can’t stop my cravings. So now I am scared of obesity I have mixed feelings of inability to finish work on time, improper mealtime, and never-ending household chores.” Moreover, participant #5 added that “I am facing physical exhaustion over reaction or misjudgment due to COVID-19 cases I developed a fear syndrome every time I heard ambulance sirens. I am asking myself, what to do next. This has made me feel not only mentally but physically exhausted. I am also afraid and nervous all the time about the pandemic situation, not able to ignore or accept news related to the pandemic because lack of awareness can cause panic if I suddenly received news about our close friends or relatives that were infected with COVID-19. The research has shown that experiencing stress may lead to obesity due to overeating, as food cravings was part of the body’s reaction to stress.9
The fourth theme was feeling insecure about the future. This includes concern about the future and whether the vaccine will work and businesses will return to normal. In addition, several major organizations have had to incorporate pay cuts or have had to close down and lay off employees. Therefore, participants tended to develop mixed feelings about losing their work skills, experiencing job insecurity, feeling abandoned and insecure about the new normal, as mentioned by participant #12 “I have a special needs son and I am the source of income in the family. If something happens to me, either I am infected with COVID-19 or lose my job due to COVID-19, who is going to feed my family and especially my son. I also worry if something happens to him if he is infected with COVID-19, how can he deal with it. Thinking about it make me feel insecure, worried, and anxious about my son’s future”. Interestingly, government employees tended to not share as much concern about losing their job compared to employees from the private sector, participant #2, a working mother married to a government servant confessed “I am lucky my husband works with the government, so he still has a steady income.” But I am just thinking, now we have to stay at home, I feel bored, there is nowhere to go now. That is only my worry now.”
The final theme was financial concern. Participant #11, a lecturer in a private college expressed concern about her salary deduction “salary deduction (due to less students registered in the college - I have a PhD with very low salary) Now, it is hard to find job - still looking for another job. Remain there until got new better offer”. The respondents feared losing their job or having salary deductions because they had to support their families and pay monthly mortgages (bank loans; car/housing/personal). Younger respondents tended to be very concerned about paying off their study loan. They expressed that, if they did not have a steady income, they would not be able to settle their debts and this would increase their stress and anxiety.
Research on birds, rodents, and humans suggests that developmental exposures to stress can improve components of attention, perception, learning, memory and problem-solving which are ecologically relevant in harsh-unpredictable situations.10 After several implementations of the Movement Control Orders (MCO) and observing events around the world, the exposure to such changes has developed resiliency in each of the digital workers participants to persevere in the face of the situation that befalls them now. In psychological adaptation, resilience is defined as an individual’s ability to recover quickly from transitions, diseases, injuries, or adversity.6
In this study, the resilience of the participants during the pandemic seemed to align with the compensatory model of resilience. In this compensatory model, resilience is viewed as a factor that neutralizes risk exposure. The result of the prediction is influenced by both risk and compensating factors.11 Similarly, the themes of resilience extracted from the interviews included an active approach towards problem-solving, the tendency to maintain a positive outlook even when they were suffering, staying focused on responsibility for others to manage one’s well-being and a strong reliance on faith to maintain a positive life view as shown in Table 3.
Table 3. Factors that influence the resilience among digital workers.
The themes for resilience are as follows:
1) Active approach towards problem-solving
The respondents expressed that staying positive and being prudent in their spending helped them to remain calm. They also believed that having health insurance coverage was very crucial especially with the high rates of infection and hospitalizations. They felt assured that if they were to die from COVID-19 infection, at least there was support left behind for their family.
2) Tendency to maintain a positive outlook
Maintaining a positive outlook was among the effective ways to neutralize pandemic-related stress.8 The participants were very aware that all countries were currently working hard to fight the virus and, with the availability of the vaccines, there was hope that the situation would improve. They expressed these hopes despite the daily uncertainties they faced. Some respondents were also grateful for the stability of their spouse’s government job which made them feel secure as there was a stable income. However, private sector employees did not share this belief.
3) Staying focused on responsibility for others to manage one’s well-being
Many participants expressed that it was very important to stay focused during the pandemic by thinking about the responsibility they had for their family members. Some of the respondents reported that they had to stay healthy for their children. They did not want their children to see that they were weak, stressed, or worried. Many participants also stayed focused by thinking about their parents who were in their hometowns.7 Thus, they tended to be compliant to the SOPs so that they could live a normal life again. Doing whatever they could in order to ensure a good future for their family helped them to maintain their well-being. A positive outlook may influence the health of the whole family physically and mentally, which can indirectly spread positivity to others.8,9,12
4) Strong reliance on faith to maintain a positive life view
Participants with a strong reliance on faith13,14 such as tawakkal to Allah (“trusting in God’s plan” for Muslims) and a hopeful view throughout the pandemic helped them to maintain a positive outlook on life which is still worthwhile and meaningful. In addition, participants also expressed their faith and confidence in the government as well as the Ministry of Health (MOH) in leading the fight against COVID-19.
Conclusion
This study explored the pandemic-related stressors among digital workers as well as their ability to manage their well-being during the pandemic. By using the thematic approach,15 five themes have been identified in order to understand the pandemic related stress among these digital workers, while the level of resilience of digital workers is seen to be similar to the existing level in the study conducted by Werner and Smith.11 The themes are anxiety about COVID-19 infection, mental exhaustion, physical exhaustion, feeling insecure about the future, and financial concerns. Meanwhile, the participants’ resilience throughout the pandemic found in this study seems to fit with the compensating model of resilience, i.e., active approach toward problem-solving, tendency to maintain a positive outlook, staying focused on responsibility for others to manage one’s well-being, and strong reliance on faith. Nonetheless, the study cannot be generalized to all digital workers in Malaysia because the goal of a qualitative method is to understand digital workers’ feelings, thoughts, and experiences, with a focus on pandemic-related stress and elements that encourage them to be resilient as a result of the pandemic. According to Carminati20 and Delmar,21 the goal of qualitative research is to provide in-depth explanations and interpretations, as well as unique contributions, rather than to generalize results. Thus, to test the hypotheses and assumptions, a quantitative analysis should be conducted. Future studies should also further solidify the criteria for “digital workers” during the pandemic.
Author contributions
Main author is responsible for the project planning and all authors contributed to the findings and discussion.
Data availability
The full transcripts cannot be publicly shared due to ethical restrictions. They are available upon request from the corresponding author.
Underlying data
DANS: Exploring pandemic-related stress and resilience among digital workers. https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-zgt-tbpc16
This project contains the following underlying data:
Extended data
This project contains the following extended data:
Data are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero “No rights reserved” data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication).
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how to cite this article
Rahmat H, Cheang AWO, Tan CH et al. Exploring pandemic-related stress and resilience among digital workers: A basic interpretive qualitative study [version 1; peer review: 2 approved with reservations] F1000Research 2022, 11:384 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.73623.1)
NOTE: it is important to ensure the information in square brackets after the title is included in all citations of this article.
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Version 1
VERSION 1
PUBLISHED 01 Apr 2022
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How to cite this report:
Ibrahim N. Reviewer Report For: Exploring pandemic-related stress and resilience among digital workers: A basic interpretive qualitative study [version 1; peer review: 2 approved with reservations]. F1000Research 2022, 11:384 (https://doi.org/10.5256/f1000research.77287.r175132)
The direct URL for this report is:
https://f1000research.com/articles/11-384/v1#referee-response-175132
https://f1000research.com/articles/11-384/v1#referee-response-175132
NOTE: it is important to ensure the information in square brackets after the title is included in this citation.
Reviewer Report 14 Jun 2023
Approved with Reservations
VIEWS 2
The objectives, procedures, and findings of the study are succinctly summarized in the abstract. It effectively drives home the need for more research into the stress that the COVID-19 epidemic caused for digital employees as well as their ability to
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HOW TO CITE THIS REPORT
Ibrahim N. Reviewer Report For: Exploring pandemic-related stress and resilience among digital workers: A basic interpretive qualitative study [version 1; peer review: 2 approved with reservations]. F1000Research 2022, 11:384 (https://doi.org/10.5256/f1000research.77287.r175132)
The direct URL for this report is:
https://f1000research.com/articles/11-384/v1#referee-response-175132
https://f1000research.com/articles/11-384/v1#referee-response-175132
NOTE: it is important to ensure the information in square brackets after the title is included in all citations of this article.
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How to cite this report:
Mohd Mahudin ND. Reviewer Report For: Exploring pandemic-related stress and resilience among digital workers: A basic interpretive qualitative study [version 1; peer review: 2 approved with reservations]. F1000Research 2022, 11:384 (https://doi.org/10.5256/f1000research.77287.r153596)
The direct URL for this report is:
https://f1000research.com/articles/11-384/v1#referee-response-153596
https://f1000research.com/articles/11-384/v1#referee-response-153596
NOTE: it is important to ensure the information in square brackets after the title is included in this citation.
Reviewer Report 01 Nov 2022
Approved with Reservations
VIEWS 15
The goal of this paper is relatively straightforward: applying thematic analysis to 15 semi-structured interviews and drawing on the psychological resilience concept to understand how workers who previously worked from the office (WFO) but then had to change to work
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HOW TO CITE THIS REPORT
Mohd Mahudin ND. Reviewer Report For: Exploring pandemic-related stress and resilience among digital workers: A basic interpretive qualitative study [version 1; peer review: 2 approved with reservations]. F1000Research 2022, 11:384 (https://doi.org/10.5256/f1000research.77287.r153596)
The direct URL for this report is:
https://f1000research.com/articles/11-384/v1#referee-response-153596
https://f1000research.com/articles/11-384/v1#referee-response-153596
NOTE: it is important to ensure the information in square brackets after the title is included in all citations of this article.
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