Unpacking the Work-Related Thoughts that Follow you Home: Anticipation, Rumination, and Exhaustion

Abstract

Stress is a prevalent challenge in everyday life, particularly affecting employee well-being in the workplace. This study examined the effects of off-job thinking, namely anticipation and rumination concerning work, on the relationship between stress and exhaustion experienced by individuals. Participants were recruited from two populations of nurses and were asked to respond to a series of questionnaires. In Study 1, we examine these effects in a sample of 21 oncology nurses from Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). Using multilevel mediation models, we found that stress was positively associated with work-related rumination and negative anticipation, but rumination and anticipation did not significantly predict or mediate the relationship between stress and exhaustion. The results indicated a poor model fit, which was acknowledged given the small sample size. In Study 2, we expanded on these findings by investigating the role of off-job thoughts as a mediator between stress and exhaustion in a larger sample of 167 nurses recruited from Prolific. The results showed that higher levels of appraised stress were positively associated with both rumination and negative anticipation, which in turn were related to increased exhaustion. However, like Study 1, neither work-related rumination nor negative anticipation significantly mediated the relationship between stress and exhaustion. These findings suggest that while stress affects rumination and anticipation, these factors do not serve as key mediators in the stress-exhaustion process.