Moderating Effects of Vacation on Reactions to Work and Domestic Stress

Abstract

Several factors have been found to reduce the adverse effects of stress on physical and mental health. In this study it was investigated whether vacation modified the effects of occupational and domestic stress on different aspects of well-being. Also, the moderating effect of recuperation was studied. Occupational stress, operationalized as perceived workload, domestic stress and well-being were measured by questionnaire ten days before and three days after a two-week vacation from work for a sample of n = 53 employees of a hardware company. Workload did not affect well-being before vacation, but had a deteriorating impact on the quality of sleep, social activities, and mood after vacation. Domestic stress had a similar impact on well-being before and after vacation. Subjects reporting greater recuperation during vacation had less physical complaints and greater life satisfaction when experiencing high workload than subjects reporting less recuperation. In conclusion, this study shows that vacation generally does not buffer the effects of occupational or domestic stress on well-being. Rather, the results suggest that high levels of postvacation work-load eliminate the potentially positive effect of vacation. However, the results also indicate that a restful vacation may buffer postvacation work-related stress with respect to physical complaints and life satisfaction, but not with respect to mood-related aspects of well-being and sleep.

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