Exploring QOL while working from home in the US by age, gender and race
Oral Presentation C8.8
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14288/hfjc.v14i3.692Keywords:
Quality of Life, Working From Home, Qualitative Age, Gender, RaceAbstract
Background: Working from home is becoming more common, but little is known about quality of life (QOL) and the remote working experience. QOL is frequently applied to understanding the well-being of individuals, but there is little agreement about how to define and measure QOL particularly in terms of the home-workplace. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore QOL while working from home in the US participants by age, gender and race. Methods: The comments of 169 online US respondents to the Quality of Life Home Workplace Questionnaire (QOLHWQ) were analyzed illustrating contributing factors associated with QOL while working from home. A qualitative study using the Quality of Life Home Workplace Questionnaire (QOLHWQ) was conducted online via SurveyMonkey® between July-September 2020. The instrument consisted of demographic items and 11 open-ended questions including the following, which is the focus of this abstract: Please describe your current quality of life and how it relates to working from home. Data were exported into Excel for data analysis including preparing data, open-coding, sorting codes, and organizing themes. Results: Preliminary coding indicated more participants (68) felt working from home increased QOL, 39 described decreased QOL, 27 cited pro/cons, 7 wrote fine, basic, or ok, 6 reported QOL was the same, 1 stated no relationship, and 20 comments were categorized as other. There were a variety of reasons for increased QOL (more time, less stress, decreased commute) and decreased QOL was primarily due to a lack of socializing. After coding is refined, the associations of age, gender, and race with QOL while working from home will be presented. Conclusions: If the trend of more people working from home continues, home-workplace QOL will likely play an essential role in health promotion in the US. Understanding what promotes QOL at home could aid in creating evidenced-based programs that could optimize the home-workplace for both employees and employers. For example, if the issue of socializing could be addressed for people working from home, it seems that QOL could be improved. Furthermore, understanding the relationship between age, gender, and race could further inform tailoring of home-workplace initiatives to create more effective measurement and programming. Funding: N/A.
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Copyright (c) 2021 Michelle L. D'Abundo, Paul F. Franco, Deborah DeLuca
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