Introduction: As a result of the widespread penetration of new technologies, especially the Internet and mobile phones, into the lives of employees, work interruptions have become a major challenge in organizations. Email, text messages, and phone calls, etc., are some of the most common sources of work interruptions that distract employees from their usual work tasks. Based on evidence, work interruptions have many negative consequences for organizations. Although work interruptions occur in all organizations, they are more critical in the medical industry. Given the prevalence of work interruptions among employees of organizations in Iran, the present study attempts to investigate the effect of work interruptions on well-being with the mediating role of rumination among medical industry employees.
Method: The is an applied research based on its purpose and a survey based on its data collection method. The statistical population of this study included all the medical staff of Shahid Chamran Hospital, Tehran (Shahid Fakhrizadeh Dental Specialized Center), totaling 305 people, of whom 260 were selected using a simple random sampling method. To measure well-being, rumination, and work interruptions, the following instruments were used respectively: Carol Ryff's Well-being Questionnaire (1989), Nolen-Hoeksema and Morrow's Rumination Questionnaire (1991), and Yu and Li's Work Interruptions Questionnaire (2007). These questionnaires have been validated in previous research and have been used in the Iranian context. A structural equation modeling approach in Amos software was used to analyze the data.
Findings: The results of the study show that the work interruptions variable has a significant effect on well-being with a coefficient of 0.51, but does not have a significant effect on rumination with a coefficient of -0.04. The rumination variable had a significant effect on well-being with an effect coefficient of -0.19. Furthermore, rumination does not mediate the relationship between work interruption and the well-being of the medical staff of Shahid Chamran Hospital, Tehran (Shahid Fakhrizadeh Dental Specialized Center). The square of the multiple correlation coefficient shows that the work interruption and rumination variables explain 31% of the variance in the dependent variable of well-being.
Conclusion: Based on the research findings, the conclusion of this study is that work interruption promote well-being by activating positive emotions, given the nature of the medical staff's job. Medical staff are accustomed to numerous and frequent interruptions in their work environment; therefore, these do not cause excessive stress or rumination. This factor explains the lack of a mediating role of rumination in the relationship between work interruptions and the well-being of medical staff.