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The importance of perceived autonomy support for the psychological health and work satisfaction of health professionals: Not only supervisors count, colleagues too!

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Abstract

Previous studies show that supervisors’ autonomy-supportive style predicts greater psychological health (Baard et al. in J Appl Soc Psychol 34:2045–2068, 2004; Blais and Brière 1992; Lynch et al. in Prof Psychol Res Pract 36:415–425, 2005) and lower psychological distress (Deci et al. in Personal Soc Psychol Bull 27:930–942, 2001). The goal of the present study is to extend these results and investigate the contribution of colleagues’ perceived autonomy support in the prediction of health professionals’ work satisfaction and psychological health. The combined impact of supervisors’ and colleagues’ perceived autonomy support is also examined. A sample of 597 health professionals from the province of Quebec (Canada) completed a questionnaire, which included measures of perceived supervisors’ and colleagues’ autonomy support and outcome variables. Results confirm that supervisors’ and colleagues’ perceived autonomy support predict health professionals’ work satisfaction and psychological health. Results also show that colleagues’ perceived autonomy support adds to the prediction of health professionals’ work satisfaction, subjective well-being, and suicidal ideation above and beyond supervisors’ perceived autonomy support.

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Notes

  1. Burnout is defined as a pathological syndrome characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, cynicism, and feeling of inefficacy (Maslach et al. 1997).

  2. This sample of medical residents is presented at length in Moreau and Mageau’s (2011b) article.

  3. Applying a square-root transformation to the suicidal ideation scores would change their distribution to a more normal shape. However, given that the results are basically the same with or without this transformation, we chose to use the original suicidal ideation scores for simplicity.

  4. Results pertaining to career stage and age are not further interpreted given the restricted range of these variables.

  5. Possible interaction effects were also tested for each outcome. Predictors (i.e., supervisors’ autonomy support and colleagues’ autonomy support) were centered prior to entering the regression equation and the interaction term was computed using the cross-product of these centered predictors (Cohen et al., 2003). The interaction term between supervisors’ and colleagues’ autonomy support added additional explained variance for only one outcome, namely work satisfaction (\( R_{\text{change}}^{2} = .01 \); F change (1, 470) = 8.70, P < .01, β = .12). This interaction showed that the positive effect of colleagues’ autonomy support on work satisfaction might be stronger when supervisors’ autonomy support is also present. Given that work satisfaction may be considered as a general measure of people’s adjustment at work, people may report enhanced satisfaction when they feel supported by both their supervisors and colleagues. Yet, because no significant interaction was found for the other dependent variables of the present study, this interaction should be replicated before it can be further interpreted.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all health professionals who participated in the present study for their time and cooperation. We also want to acknowledge the “Ordre des dentistes du Québec” [Quebec Order of Dentists], the “Ordre des médecins vétérinaires du Québec” [Quebec Order of Medical Veterinarians], the “Fédération des médecins résidents du Québec” [Quebec Federation of Medical Residents], the “Association des étudiants en médecine dentaire de l’Université de Montréal” [Dental Students Association of the University of Montreal], the “Association des étudiants en médecine dentaire de l’Université Laval” [Dental Students Association of the Université Laval], the “Fédération médicale étudiante du Québec” [Quebec Federation of Medical Students], and the “Faculté de médecine vétérinaire de l’Université de Montréal” [Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Montreal] for their help with the data collection. This research was facilitated by doctoral scholarships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the “Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture” (FQRSC) and the “Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité au travail” (IRSST) to the first author and funded by a grant from the FQRSC to the second author.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, P.O. Box 6128, Downtown Station, Montreal, QC, H3C 3J7, Canada

    Elise Moreau & Geneviève A. Mageau

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  1. Elise Moreau
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  2. Geneviève A. Mageau
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Correspondence to Elise Moreau.

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Moreau, E., Mageau, G.A. The importance of perceived autonomy support for the psychological health and work satisfaction of health professionals: Not only supervisors count, colleagues too!. Motiv Emot 36, 268–286 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-011-9250-9

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