Exploring the Role of Job Satisfaction and Work-Life Balance: A Study on the Mental Health Among Software Engineers
Resumo
Depression, anxiety and stress behaviors increasingly affect more people in different work contexts. These behaviors have significant impacts on personal and professional life, affecting quality of life and work performance. This research project aims to investigate the relationship between job satisfaction and the occurrence of symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress, in software engineering, and explore the organizational management of these activities in relation to employee well-being. The research used a mixed-method approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods, including questionnaires and individual interviews. The sample was made up of 190 software engineering professionals, considering different workloads, lengths of experience, genders and companies. It revealed that 48.5% of participants presented moderate to very severe anxiety symptoms, 55.3% of depression for the same severity range and 53.8% of stress symptoms also for the same severity. Further linear regression analyses demonstrated that feeling valued, being able to cope with workload, and balancing professional and personal life were predictors for the emergence of symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress. Finally, no significant differences were identified in the levels of anxiety, depression, stress and job satisfaction in relation to the loads held by the participants, but significant differences were noticed in relation to the variables listed above when comparing groups of different age ranges, severity of symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress. Groups with higher levels of symptoms demonstrated less balance between professional and personal life and a lower feeling of appreciation for the team, while for the group with fewer symptoms the result was the opposite.
Palavras-chave:
Depression, Anxiety, Stress, Mental health, Software Engineering
Referências
Maria Eulália Aires, Lucas Migge, Kiev Gama, and Aline Lacerda. 2024. Exploring the Role of Job Satisfaction and Work-Life Balance: A Study on the Mental Health Among Software Engineers - Supplementary Material. Available on Figshare DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.26394859.
Hind AlShehhi, Muhammad Alshurideh, Barween Al Kurdi, and Said A Salloum. 2020. The impact of ethical leadership on employees performance: A systematic review. In International conference on advanced intelligent systems and informatics. Springer, 417–426.
Georgia Barbayannis, Mahindra Bandari, Xiang Zheng, Humberto Baquerizo, Keith W Pecor, and Xue Ming. 2022. Academic stress and mental well-being in college students: correlations, affected groups, and COVID-19. Frontiers in Psychology 13 (2022), 886344.
Jenna Butler and Sonia Jaffe. 2021. Challenges and gratitude: A diary study of software engineers working from home during covid-19 pandemic. In 2021 IEEE/ACM 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice (ICSE-SEIP). IEEE, 362–363.
Edna Dias Canedo, Heloise Acco Tives, Madianita Bogo Marioti, Fabiano Fagundes, and José Antonio Siqueira de Cerqueira. 2019. Barriers faced by women in software development projects. Information 10, 10 (2019), 309.
Sheldon Cohen, Denise Janicki-Deverts, and Gregory E Miller. 2007. Psychological stress and disease. Jama 298, 14 (2007), 1685–1687.
Eduardo Santana de Almeida, Ingrid Oliveira de Nunes, Raphael Pereira de Oliveira, Michelle Larissa Luciano Carvalho, Andre Russowsky Brunoni, Shiyue Rong, and Iftekhar Ahmed. 2023. A Snapshot of the Mental Health of Software Professionals. arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.17140 (2023).
Helen Graham, Vanesa Fuertes, Valerie Egdell, and Robert Raeside. 2016. Women in ICT and Digital Technologies: An investigation of the barriers to women entering, staying, and progressing in the sector, and actions to ameliorate this- Executive Summary. (2016).
D. Graziotin, F. Fagerholm, X. Wang, and P. Abrahamsson. 2018. What happens when software developers are (un)happy. Journal of Systems and Software 140 (2018), 32–47.
Martin C Härter, Kevin P Conway, and Kathleen R Merikangas. 2003. Associations between anxiety disorders and physical illness. European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience 253 (2003), 313–320.
Sonja M Hyrynsalmi. 2019. The underrepresentation of women in the software industry: thoughts from career-changing women. In 2019 IEEE/ACM 2nd International Workshop on Gender Equality in Software Engineering (GE). IEEE, 1–4.
Timothy A Judge, Carl J Thoresen, Joyce E Bono, and Gregory K Patton. 2001. The job satisfaction–job performance relationship: A qualitative and quantitative review. Psychological bulletin 127, 3 (2001), 376.
Riba Maria Kurian and Shinto Thomas. 2023. Importance of positive emotions in software developers’ performance: a narrative review. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science 24, 6 (2023), 631–645.
Peter F Lovibond and Sydney H Lovibond. 1995. The structure of negative emotional states: Comparison of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) with the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories. Behaviour research and therapy 33, 3 (1995), 335–343.
Marcelo Marinho, Luís Amorim, Rafael Camara, Brigitte Renata Oliveira, Marcos Sobral, and Suzana Sampaio. 2021. Happier and further by going together: The importance of software team behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic. Technology in society 67 (2021), 101799.
Ramyashilpa D Nayak. 2014. Anxiety and mental health of software professionals and mechanical professionals. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention 3, 2 (2014), 52–56.
Mariko Nishikitani, Mutsuhiro Nakao, Kanae Karita, Kyoko Nomura, and Eiji Yano. 2005. Influence of overtime work, sleep duration, and perceived job characteristics on the physical and mental status of software engineers. Industrial health 43, 4 (2005), 623–629.
Tian PS Oei, Sukanlaya Sawang, YongWah Goh, and Firdaus Mukhtar. 2013. Using the depression anxiety stress scale 21 (DASS-21) across cultures. International Journal of Psychology 48, 6 (2013), 1018–1029.
World Health Organization. 2022. COVID-19 pandemic triggers 25% increase in prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide. [link]. Accessed on: Nov. 10, 2023.
Dan Qiu, Ruiqi Li, Yilu Li, Jun He, Feiyun Ouyang, Dan Luo, and Shuiyuan Xiao. 2021. Job dissatisfaction mediated the associations between work stress and mental health problems. Frontiers in Psychiatry 12 (2021), 711263.
Daniel Russo, Paul HP Hanel, Seraphina Altnickel, and Niels van Berkel. 2021. Predictors of well-being and productivity among software professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic–a longitudinal study. Empirical Software Engineering 26, 4 (2021), 62.
Daniel Russo, Paul HP Hanel, Seraphina Altnickel, and Niels van Berkel. 2023. Satisfaction and performance of software developers during enforced work from home in the COVID-19 pandemic. Empirical Software Engineering 28, 2 (2023), 53.
Erman Şentürk, Eser Sağaltıcı, Bahadır Geniş, and Ömür Günday Toker. 2021. Predictors of depression, anxiety and stress among remote workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Work 70, 1 (2021), 41–51.
Pankaj Singh, Damodar Suar, and Michael P Leiter. 2012. Antecedents, workrelated consequences, and buffers of job burnout among Indian software developers. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 19, 1 (2012), 83–104.
Mochamad Soelton, Putri Ayu Lestari, Harefan Arief, and Ratyuhono Linggarnusantra Putra. 2020. The effect of role conflict and burnout toward turnover intention at software industries, work stress as moderating variables. In 4th International Conference on Management, Economics and Business (ICMEB 2019). Atlantis Press, 185–190.
Sharifah Syed-Abdullah, Mike Holcombe, and Marian Gheorge. 2006. The impact of an agile methodology on the well being of development teams. Empirical Software Engineering 11 (2006), 143–167.
Ferdinando Toscano and Salvatore Zappalà. 2020. Social isolation and stress as predictors of productivity perception and remote work satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of concern about the virus in a moderated double mediation. Sustainability 12, 23 (2020), 9804.
Tien Rahayu Tulili, Andrea Capiluppi, and Ayushi Rastogi. 2023. Burnout in software engineering: A systematic mapping study. Information and Software Technology 155 (2023), 107116.
Barbara TURNER, Sankey WILLIAMS, Darren TAICHMAN, Tonya L FANCHER, and Richard L KRAVITZ. 2010. In the clinic Depression. Annals of internal medicine 152, 9 (2010).
Peter Tyrer and David Baldwin. 2006. Generalised anxiety disorder. The Lancet 368, 9553 (2006), 2156–2166.
Michael W Vasey, Guy Bosmans, and Thomas H Ollendick. 2014. The developmental psychopathology of anxiety. Springer.
NoviaWong, Victoria Jackson, André Van Der Hoek, Iftekhar Ahmed, Stephen M Schueller, and Madhu Reddy. 2023. Mental Wellbeing at Work: Perspectives of Software Engineers. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1–15.
World Health Organization. 2023. Anxiety disorders. [link]. Accessed on: Nov. 10, 2023.
Hind AlShehhi, Muhammad Alshurideh, Barween Al Kurdi, and Said A Salloum. 2020. The impact of ethical leadership on employees performance: A systematic review. In International conference on advanced intelligent systems and informatics. Springer, 417–426.
Georgia Barbayannis, Mahindra Bandari, Xiang Zheng, Humberto Baquerizo, Keith W Pecor, and Xue Ming. 2022. Academic stress and mental well-being in college students: correlations, affected groups, and COVID-19. Frontiers in Psychology 13 (2022), 886344.
Jenna Butler and Sonia Jaffe. 2021. Challenges and gratitude: A diary study of software engineers working from home during covid-19 pandemic. In 2021 IEEE/ACM 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice (ICSE-SEIP). IEEE, 362–363.
Edna Dias Canedo, Heloise Acco Tives, Madianita Bogo Marioti, Fabiano Fagundes, and José Antonio Siqueira de Cerqueira. 2019. Barriers faced by women in software development projects. Information 10, 10 (2019), 309.
Sheldon Cohen, Denise Janicki-Deverts, and Gregory E Miller. 2007. Psychological stress and disease. Jama 298, 14 (2007), 1685–1687.
Eduardo Santana de Almeida, Ingrid Oliveira de Nunes, Raphael Pereira de Oliveira, Michelle Larissa Luciano Carvalho, Andre Russowsky Brunoni, Shiyue Rong, and Iftekhar Ahmed. 2023. A Snapshot of the Mental Health of Software Professionals. arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.17140 (2023).
Helen Graham, Vanesa Fuertes, Valerie Egdell, and Robert Raeside. 2016. Women in ICT and Digital Technologies: An investigation of the barriers to women entering, staying, and progressing in the sector, and actions to ameliorate this- Executive Summary. (2016).
D. Graziotin, F. Fagerholm, X. Wang, and P. Abrahamsson. 2018. What happens when software developers are (un)happy. Journal of Systems and Software 140 (2018), 32–47.
Martin C Härter, Kevin P Conway, and Kathleen R Merikangas. 2003. Associations between anxiety disorders and physical illness. European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience 253 (2003), 313–320.
Sonja M Hyrynsalmi. 2019. The underrepresentation of women in the software industry: thoughts from career-changing women. In 2019 IEEE/ACM 2nd International Workshop on Gender Equality in Software Engineering (GE). IEEE, 1–4.
Timothy A Judge, Carl J Thoresen, Joyce E Bono, and Gregory K Patton. 2001. The job satisfaction–job performance relationship: A qualitative and quantitative review. Psychological bulletin 127, 3 (2001), 376.
Riba Maria Kurian and Shinto Thomas. 2023. Importance of positive emotions in software developers’ performance: a narrative review. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science 24, 6 (2023), 631–645.
Peter F Lovibond and Sydney H Lovibond. 1995. The structure of negative emotional states: Comparison of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) with the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories. Behaviour research and therapy 33, 3 (1995), 335–343.
Marcelo Marinho, Luís Amorim, Rafael Camara, Brigitte Renata Oliveira, Marcos Sobral, and Suzana Sampaio. 2021. Happier and further by going together: The importance of software team behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic. Technology in society 67 (2021), 101799.
Ramyashilpa D Nayak. 2014. Anxiety and mental health of software professionals and mechanical professionals. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention 3, 2 (2014), 52–56.
Mariko Nishikitani, Mutsuhiro Nakao, Kanae Karita, Kyoko Nomura, and Eiji Yano. 2005. Influence of overtime work, sleep duration, and perceived job characteristics on the physical and mental status of software engineers. Industrial health 43, 4 (2005), 623–629.
Tian PS Oei, Sukanlaya Sawang, YongWah Goh, and Firdaus Mukhtar. 2013. Using the depression anxiety stress scale 21 (DASS-21) across cultures. International Journal of Psychology 48, 6 (2013), 1018–1029.
World Health Organization. 2022. COVID-19 pandemic triggers 25% increase in prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide. [link]. Accessed on: Nov. 10, 2023.
Dan Qiu, Ruiqi Li, Yilu Li, Jun He, Feiyun Ouyang, Dan Luo, and Shuiyuan Xiao. 2021. Job dissatisfaction mediated the associations between work stress and mental health problems. Frontiers in Psychiatry 12 (2021), 711263.
Daniel Russo, Paul HP Hanel, Seraphina Altnickel, and Niels van Berkel. 2021. Predictors of well-being and productivity among software professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic–a longitudinal study. Empirical Software Engineering 26, 4 (2021), 62.
Daniel Russo, Paul HP Hanel, Seraphina Altnickel, and Niels van Berkel. 2023. Satisfaction and performance of software developers during enforced work from home in the COVID-19 pandemic. Empirical Software Engineering 28, 2 (2023), 53.
Erman Şentürk, Eser Sağaltıcı, Bahadır Geniş, and Ömür Günday Toker. 2021. Predictors of depression, anxiety and stress among remote workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Work 70, 1 (2021), 41–51.
Pankaj Singh, Damodar Suar, and Michael P Leiter. 2012. Antecedents, workrelated consequences, and buffers of job burnout among Indian software developers. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 19, 1 (2012), 83–104.
Mochamad Soelton, Putri Ayu Lestari, Harefan Arief, and Ratyuhono Linggarnusantra Putra. 2020. The effect of role conflict and burnout toward turnover intention at software industries, work stress as moderating variables. In 4th International Conference on Management, Economics and Business (ICMEB 2019). Atlantis Press, 185–190.
Sharifah Syed-Abdullah, Mike Holcombe, and Marian Gheorge. 2006. The impact of an agile methodology on the well being of development teams. Empirical Software Engineering 11 (2006), 143–167.
Ferdinando Toscano and Salvatore Zappalà. 2020. Social isolation and stress as predictors of productivity perception and remote work satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of concern about the virus in a moderated double mediation. Sustainability 12, 23 (2020), 9804.
Tien Rahayu Tulili, Andrea Capiluppi, and Ayushi Rastogi. 2023. Burnout in software engineering: A systematic mapping study. Information and Software Technology 155 (2023), 107116.
Barbara TURNER, Sankey WILLIAMS, Darren TAICHMAN, Tonya L FANCHER, and Richard L KRAVITZ. 2010. In the clinic Depression. Annals of internal medicine 152, 9 (2010).
Peter Tyrer and David Baldwin. 2006. Generalised anxiety disorder. The Lancet 368, 9553 (2006), 2156–2166.
Michael W Vasey, Guy Bosmans, and Thomas H Ollendick. 2014. The developmental psychopathology of anxiety. Springer.
NoviaWong, Victoria Jackson, André Van Der Hoek, Iftekhar Ahmed, Stephen M Schueller, and Madhu Reddy. 2023. Mental Wellbeing at Work: Perspectives of Software Engineers. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1–15.
World Health Organization. 2023. Anxiety disorders. [link]. Accessed on: Nov. 10, 2023.
Publicado
30/09/2024
Como Citar
AIRES, Maria Eulália; MIGGE, Lucas; GAMA, Kiev; LACERDA, Aline.
Exploring the Role of Job Satisfaction and Work-Life Balance: A Study on the Mental Health Among Software Engineers. In: SIMPÓSIO BRASILEIRO DE ENGENHARIA DE SOFTWARE (SBES), 38. , 2024, Curitiba/PR.
Anais [...].
Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação,
2024
.
p. 269-279.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/sbes.2024.3420.
