The Health and Wellbeing of Remote and Mobile Workers. Final Report

Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 31 participants; 20 in Service Stations in the West Midlands and 11 from businesses employing remote and mobile workers. The aim of the interviews was to obtain information to further inform and develop the questionnaire survey. Topics included in the interviews were work and working time, contact with managers, sources of pressure, positive and negative impacts on them, types of vehicle used, comfort in vehicles and equipment used in vehicles. Data from the interviews were collated and used in the development of the questionnaire survey.

Questionnaire Survey
A questionnaire survey tool was developed including validated questionnaires (General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ), the Pennebaker Index of Limbic Languidness, the Chronic Fatigue Scale and the Short Quality of Life Questionnaire) and specifically developed questions including demographic data, the job, vehicles and driving, working time, access to services at work as well as work and family life. The questionnaire was piloted with 20 respondents and amendments made.

Recruitment of companies to the study was difficult and only two agreed to take full part. A total 3600 questionnaires were sent out to the two companies and the resulting response rate was 6.8% for the total sample. Further analysis of the age distribution and region of response of questionnaires, identified that they were representative of the total population of the companies involved.

The questionnaire survey identified that caseness for psychological distress was reported by
64.2% of those surveyed. Further analysis identified that higher scores were found for somatic symptoms, anxiety and social dysfunction but not severe depression. The responses for physical health identified that the majority were in the normal range for ill health symptoms but for musculoskeletal symptoms the commonest areas reported were the lower back (68.4%), knees (51.1%) and right shoulder (45.9%) over the previous 12 months.

Contact with managers was reported by the majority through mobile phones or emails whereas contact with colleagues was, on the whole, face-to-face. The majority of respondents (85%) reported being comfortable in their vehicle. A range of responses with regard to hours working in the vehicle (0 to 55 hours per week) and mileage (50 to 1500 miles per week) were reported.

The majority of responses to the subjective rating of work factors, access to services, work- life balance and supervision were positive. The majority of those sampled were not able to choose where they worked as they were both service-based companies. Although the majority reported making decisions without managers, they did report that they would consult managers before important decisions had to be made. One important issue identified was that the minority of respondent said that access to training courses was easy. This suggests a potential problem in ensuring equal access to this group of workers.

Relational analysis of the results were carried out and identified that there were significant associations between being a case for psychological distress and chronic fatigue, ill health symptoms and hours of driving. Further analysis identified that ill health symptoms were

associated with increasing psychological distress and chronic fatigue, increased contact with managers and hours driving but was found to decrease with average miles driven.

A number of associations were also identified for musculoskeletal symptoms. Pain or discomfort in the right shoulder, right elbow and left wrist was associated with increasing mileage. Hip or thigh pain was found to be associated with increasing age.

The three measures of chronic fatigue, GHQ and health symptoms were found to be associated with each other. The majority of the relationships were positive with increases in one being reflected by increases in the other.

Conclusions
Although there is limited research available for this group of workers within the review and the survey was limited by a small sample the results indicate that there are some key issues affecting remote and mobile workers. These include the impact of high levels of psychosocial distress and musculoskeletal symptoms among the sample.

Further Research
Further research required in this area would, of course, include a survey with a larger number of participants and an improved response rate but would also include more female employees and those driving cars as the majority in this survey drove vans. Further factors identified within this project that warrant further research include:

• Identifying sources and solutions to the high levels of psychological distress identified within this group.
• Identifying if sources of stress were different in different groups, for example, those involved in sales as compared to service industries.
• Examination of the impact of fatigue and recovery on remote and mobile workers.
• Identification of the impact of this type of work on individuals in less physical jobs

Guidance
Guidance for managers has been developed from this research and is available as a stand alone document.