The Balance between Work and Life for Subjective Well-Being: A Moderated Mediation Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper aims at exploring the relationship between work-life balance, intrinsic motivation, subjective well-being and job satisfaction among the healthcare professionals of Pakistan.

The research question is well defined and clear; the paper is well written and has a good literature review concerning the topic. Moreover, the causal relation is well explicated. Finally, the conclusion is comprehensive and clearly discusses the implications for managers and limitations.

 

Originality/Novelty: Is the question original and well defined? Do the results provide an advance in current knowledge?

The question is original, and results provide stimulating remarks.

 

Significance: Are the results interpreted appropriately? Are they significant? Are all conclusions justified and supported by the results? Are hypotheses and speculations carefully identified as such?

Results are commented in a proper way, and conclusions are supported by results. Hypotheses are precisely identified.

 

Quality of Presentation: Is the article written in an appropriate way? Are the data and analyses presented appropriately? Are the highest standards for presentation of the results used?

The article is written in Standard English and the quality of the presentation is very good.

 

Scientific Soundness: is the study correctly designed and technically sound? Are the analyses performed with the highest technical standards? Are the data robust enough to draw the conclusions? Are the methods, tools, software, and reagents described with sufficient details to allow another researcher to reproduce the results?

The study seems correctly designed and methods and tools used are properly described.

 

Interest to the Readers: Are the conclusions interesting for the readership of the Journal? Will the paper attract a wide readership, or be of interest only to a limited number of people? (please see the Aims and Scope of the Journal)

The conclusion could be satisfying for the readership of the Journal.

 

Overall Merit: Is there an overall benefit to publishing this work? Does the work provide an advance towards the current knowledge? Do the authors have addressed an important long-standing question with smart experiments?

Yes.

 

English Level: Is the English language appropriate and understandable?

The article is written in standard English

 

Review Comments to the Author

Dear Authors, thanks for submitting a welcome contribution to this field of study. I think the topic raised in this paper is interesting and I can recommend publication at this stage.

Author Response

Many thanks to Reviwer #1 for appreciating our effort. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

The presented manuscript of analyzing the association between work-life balance, intrinsic motivation, subjective well-being, and job satisfaction among Health Care Professionals in Pakistan is interesting and up-to date.

The following comments of the manuscript should be considered:

• Page 1: The abbreviation SWB should be clearly defined like the abbreviation for work-life balance (WLB) before the first usage (not on the page 2).
• Use the same wording for: “Work-life balance” throughout the manuscript (do not use sometimes “Work life balance” and sometimes “Work-life balance”).
• Page 1: Check the citation “Russo, Shteigman, & Carmeli, 2015” and “Russo et al., 2015” with the information in the References where the year of that publication is 2016.
• Page 2: the citation “Fisher, 2002” is missing in the References.
• Page 2: Check the citation “Bowling, Eschleman, & Wang, 2011” with the information in the References where the year of that publication is 2010.
• Page 2: Check the citation “Yadav & Dabhade, 2018” with the information in the References where the year of that publication is 2014.
• Page 2: Check the citation “Van Dijke et al., 2018” with the information in the References where the year of that publication is 2019.
• Page 2: Check the wording of citation “Kashyapa, Josephb, & Deshmukhc, 2016” with the information in the References.
• Page 3: For the “Figure 1” some information about the sources for creation of the figure would be useful.
• The Figure 1 must be reproduced without the sings “π” and without the dots.
• Page 3: the citation “Guest, 2002” is missing in the References.
• Page 4: the citation “Georgellis and Lange, 2012” is missing in the References.
• Page 4: the citations “Lambert, 1990; Robinson et al., 2014” are missing in the References.
• Page 4: the citations “Ferguson et al., 2012; Haar, 2013” are missing in the References.
• Page 4: Check the citation “Allen et al., 2004;” with the information in the References where the year of that publication is 2000.
• Page 4, line 164: Check the wording of citation “Varoom (1964)” with the information in the References.
• Page 5: Check the citation “Prasoon & Chaturvedi (2106)” with the information in the References where the year of that publication is 2016.
• Page 5: The abbreviations used in the manuscript: “PKLI & RC, SKMTH & RC, LGH” should be explained in more details.
• Page 6: Some information is given about the questionnaire used for the study. Is it possible to present the questionnaire, at least as an Appendix to the manuscript, for the readers?
• Pages 6 – 7: For job satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, SWB, WLB you stated the levels of α (Alfa). The reader unfortunately will not be able to understand the meaning of this Alfa-s. Only in Table 2 you inform that these figures are related to Cronbach´s alpha. It is necessary to have this information earlier in the text of the manuscript.
• Page 6: the citation “Mitchell et al. (2001)” is missing in the References.
• Page 7: Is the Work-Family Balance (subchapter 3.2.4) actually the Work-life balance? Please, use only one of the expressions for the same meaning.
• Page 7: Check the citation “Singhal & Rastog, 2018” with the information in the References.
• Page 7: the citations “Riza, Ganzach & Liu, 2018 and Beham et al., 2019” are missing in the References.
• Page 8: the loadings for job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation are not correctly noticed (compare with the figures in Table 3).
• Page 8, line 283: I the statement about “Further, CFA gives that all…” correct? It should be the EFA analysis for this stage.
• Table 4: correct the table so that figures will be in one (only one) line, the abbreviations of the used methods/indexes also only in one line.
• Pages 9 - 10: the Tables 4.7, 4.9, 4.10 are not presented in the manuscript. Correct the information.
• Check the explanations on page 10 regarding the hypothesis 1 and 2 and also 3 and 4.
• Page 12: the citations “Hill, Hawkins, Ferris, & Weitzman, 2001” are missing in the References.
•  
• The Discussion section should be more devoted to Health Care Professionals as the results of the study comes from this specific section.
• Interesting would be the comparison of the results for gender differences. The gender differences analysis could be introduced into the paper.
• More detailed information for readers would be useful why you decided to run the EFA and/or the CFA analysis (in the introduction or measures subchapters).
• Some of the references are not cited in the text of the manuscript.

All mentioned comments should help to increase the quality of the manuscript and make the results more transparent.

Author Response

Many thanks to Reviwer #2 for valuable suggestions for improving this manuscript. We have reviewed all the comments and suggestions from reviewers and the Editor and provide a point by point author response below:

Page 1: The abbreviation SWB should be clearly defined like the abbreviation for work-life balance (WLB) before the first usage (not on the page 2).

Response 1: Thank you for this suggestion – Accordingly, we have followed.

Use the same wording for: “Work-life balance” throughout the manuscript (do not use sometimes “Work life balance” and sometimes “Work-life balance”).

Response 2: Thank you for this suggestion – Accordingly, we have followed.

Page 1: Check the citation “Russo, Shteigman, & Carmeli, 2015” and “Russo et al., 2015” with the information in the References where the year of that publication is 2016.

Response 3: Correction has been made in revised manuscript

Page 2: the citation “Fisher, 2002” is missing in the References.

Response 4: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

Page 2: Check the citation “Bowling, Eschleman, & Wang, 2011” with the information in the References where the year of that publication is 2010.

Response 5: Correction has been made in revised manuscript

Page 2: Check the citation “Yadav & Dabhade, 2018” with the information in the References where the year of that publication is 2014.

Response 6: Correction has been made in revised manuscript

Page 2: Check the citation “Van Dijke et al., 2018” with the information in the References where the year of that publication is 2019.

Response 7: Correction has been made in revised manuscript

Page 2: Check the wording of citation “Kashyapa, Josephb, & Deshmukhc, 2016” with the information in the References.

Response 8: Correction has been made in revised manuscript

Page 3: For the “Figure 1” some information about the sources for creation of the figure would be useful.

Response 9: Thank you for this suggestion. We have made the required amendments.

 

The Figure 1 must be reproduced without the sings “π” and without the dots.

Response 10: we have cross verified the manuscript and do not find any sign sings “π” in it.

 

Page 3: the citation “Guest, 2002” is missing in the References.

Response 11: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

Page 4: the citation “Georgellis and Lange, 2012” is missing in the References.

Response 12: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

 

Page 4: the citations “Lambert, 1990; Robinson et al., 2014” are missing in the References.

Response 13: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

Page 4: the citations “Ferguson et al., 2012; Haar, 2013” are missing in the References.

Response 14: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

 

Page 4: Check the citation “Allen et al., 2004;” with the information in the References where the year of that publication is 2000.

Response 15: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

Page 4, line 164: Check the wording of citation “Varoom (1964)” with the information in the References.

Response 16: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

Page 5: Check the citation “Prasoon & Chaturvedi (2106)” with the information in the References where the year of that publication is 2016.

Response 17: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

Page 5: The abbreviations used in the manuscript: “PKLI & RC, SKMTH & RC, LGH” should be explained in more details.

Response 18: We have added the information in the Methods section of the revised manuscript.

Page 6: Some information is given about the questionnaire used for the study. Is it possible to present the questionnaire, at least as an Appendix to the manuscript, for the readers?

 Response 19: Thank you for this suggestion. We have added the questionnaire in  revised manuscript.

Pages 6 – 7: For job satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, SWB, WLB you stated the levels of α (Alfa). The reader unfortunately will not be able to understand the meaning of this Alfa-s. Only in Table 2 you inform that these figures are related to Cronbach´s alpha. It is necessary to have this information earlier in the text of the manuscript.

Response 20: Thank you for this suggestion – Accordingly, we have followed.

Page 6: the citation “Mitchell et al. (2001)” is missing in the References.

Response 21: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

Page 7: Is the Work-Family Balance (subchapter 3.2.4) actually the Work-life balance? Please, use only one of the expressions for the same meaning.

Response 22: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

 

Page 7: Check the citation “Singhal & Rastog, 2018” with the information in the References.

Response 23: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

Page 7: the citations “Riza, Ganzach & Liu, 2018 and Beham et al., 2019” are missing in the References.

Response 24: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

Page 8: the loadings for job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation are not correctly noticed (compare with the figures in Table 3).

Response 25: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

Page 8, line 283: I the statement about “Further, CFA gives that all…” correct? It should be the EFA analysis for this stage.

Response 26: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

 

Table 4: correct the table so that figures will be in one (only one) line, the abbreviations of the used methods/indexes also only in one line.

Pages 9 - 10: the Tables 4.7, 4.9, 4.10 are not presented in the manuscript. Correct the information.

Response 27: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

Check the explanations on page 10 regarding the hypothesis 1 and 2 and also 3 and 4.

Response 28: We have cross verified the the accuracy of all Tables and Result section.

Page 12: the citations “Hill, Hawkins, Ferris, & Weitzman, 2001” are missing in the References.

Response 29: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

The Discussion section should be more devoted to Health Care Professionals as the results of the study comes from this specific section.

Discussion has been improved

Interesting would be the comparison of the results for gender differences. The gender differences analysis could be introduced into the paper.

Response 30: We would like to thank the reviewer for pointing this issue. However, it was beyond the objectives of our study. We have recommended this point in our Limitations Section.

More detailed information for readers would be useful why you decided to run the EFA and/or the CFA analysis (in the introduction or measures subchapters).

Response 31: Information has been added in revised manuscript.

Some of the references are not cited in the text of the manuscript.

Response 32: Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

 

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors

I carefully evaluated your paper, founding it overall well written and well presented. The paper focuses on a relevant issue that needs to be properly investigated. Nevertheless, some concerns have to be solved before considering it as suitable for publication.

Introduction: I suggest to consider most updated references about work life balance. Similarly, the theme of psychological and physical problems due to work related stress needs to be supported by more updated references. About this theme, Authors can also refer to these updated papers:

Kowalczuk K, Krajewska-Kułak E and Sobolewski M (2020) Working Excessively and Burnout Among Nurses in the Context of Sick Leaves. Front. Psychol. 11:285. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00285

Lecca LI, Portoghese I, Mucci N, et al. Association between Work-Related Stress and QT Prolongation in Male Workers. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019;16(23):4781. Published 2019 Nov 28. doi:10.3390/ijerph16234781

Khamisa N, Oldenburg B, Peltzer K, Ilic D. Work related stress, burnout, job satisfaction and general health of nurses. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2015 Jan 12;12(1):652-66. doi: 10.3390/ijerph120100652. PMID: 25588157; PMCID: PMC4306884.

 

Methods section needs strong improvements: Study sample must be properly described. In particular, number of enrolled workers, number of excluded participants, inclusion and exclusion criteria, study period, and job of participants should be clearly reported, in order to allow study replication.

Statistical analysis must be presented in a specific section of the methods.

Add the ethical issues in the method section. Has the study been approved by a local Ethic committee? Does the study adhere to Helsinki declaration principles?

Control variables: why don’t you controlled for the job of participants?

Discussion section needs some improvements.

Following STROBE guidelines for cross sectional studies, the Discussion have to be structured with those elements:

 

• Summarize key results with reference to study objectives
• Discuss limitations of the study, taking into account sources of potential bias or imprecision.
• Give a cautious overall interpretation of results considering objectives, limitations, multiplicity of analyses, results from similar studies, and other relevant evidence.
• Discuss the generalizability (external validity) of the study results

In your discussion section, the forth point is lacking. It is not clear if the proposed framework can be valid also out of the healthcare setting. Authors should improve the comparisons of their results with the scientific literature about the theme, in order to argue a possible generalizability of the results.

 

Limitations: all the outcomes were self-reported ones. As future research, Authors can consider to combine self-reported and objective measurable outcomes.

 

Best Regards

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for the detailed comments that greatly helped us in the revision process. We appreciate the valuable input provided by reviewers and sincerely hope that the revised manuscript adequately addresses all the issues raised.

Introduction: I suggest to consider most updated references about work life balance. Similarly, the theme of psychological and physical problems due to work related stress needs to be supported by more updated references. About this theme, Authors can also refer to these updated papers:

Kowalczuk K, Krajewska-Kułak E and Sobolewski M (2020) Working Excessively and Burnout Among Nurses in the Context of Sick Leaves. Front. Psychol. 11:285. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00285

Lecca LI, Portoghese I, Mucci N, et al. Association between Work-Related Stress and QT Prolongation in Male Workers. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019;16(23):4781. Published 2019 Nov 28. doi:10.3390/ijerph16234781

Khamisa N, Oldenburg B, Peltzer K, Ilic D. Work related stress, burnout, job satisfaction and general health of nurses. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2015 Jan 12;12(1):652-66. doi: 10.3390/ijerph120100652. PMID: 25588157; PMCID: PMC4306884.

 Response 1: We would especially like to thank the reviewer for pointing this issue. We hope that the revised     manuscript adequately addresses this concern.

Methods section needs strong improvements: Study sample must be properly described. In particular, number of enrolled workers, number of excluded participants, inclusion and exclusion criteria, study period, and job of participants should be clearly reported, in order to allow study replication.

Response 2: Thank you for this suggestion. We have made the required revisions.

 Statistical analysis must be presented in a specific section of the methods.

Response 3:  We have added the information in methods section.

Add the ethical issues in the method section. Has the study been approved by a local Ethic committee? Does the study adhere to Helsinki declaration principles?

Response 4: Thank you for this suggestion – Accordingly, we have added the information.

Control variables: why don’t you controlled for the job of participants?

Response 5: We did not controlled for the job of participants As we targeted only the hospital employees

Discussion section needs some improvements.

 Response 6: Accordingly, we have revised the discussion section.

 Following STROBE guidelines for cross sectional studies, the Discussion have to be structured with those elements:

Summarize key results with reference to study objectives

Response 7: Accordingly, we have revised the manuscript.

Discuss limitations of the study, taking into account sources of potential bias or imprecision.

Response 8: Accordingly, we have revised the manuscript.

Give a cautious overall interpretation of results considering objectives, limitations, multiplicity of analyses, results from similar studies, and other relevant evidence.

Response 9: Thank you for this suggestion. We have made the required revisions.

Discuss the generalizability (external validity) of the study results

Response 10: Accordingly, we have revised the manuscript.

In your discussion section, the forth point is lacking. It is not clear if the proposed framework can be valid also out of the healthcare setting. Authors should improve the comparisons of their results with the scientific literature about the theme, in order to argue a possible generalizability of the results.

Response 11: Accordingly, we have revised the manuscript.

Limitations: all the outcomes were self-reported ones. As future research, Authors can consider to combine self-reported and objective measurable outcomes.

Response 12: Thank you for this suggestion – Accordingly, we have revised the limitation section.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

The presented second version of the manuscript that analyses the association between work-life balance, intrinsic motivation, subjective well-being, and job satisfaction among Health Care Professionals in Pakistan is interesting and up-to date.

The revised version is much better organized and has higher scientific quality.

This time I have only a few comments:

• For the “Figure 1” some information about the sources used for creation of the figure would be useful (for example under the name of the Figure 1).
• In my version of manuscript, the Annexure – A was not included. I hope that the questionnaire will be in the Appendix of the paper.
• In the text of the manuscript different formats (fonts) are used.
• Correct the figures presented in Table 4. One figure should be in only one row of the table.
• Some corrections are needed also in the “References” section: for example, on page 17 the citation number 5 is already cited on page 14. Citations 66 and 86 are missing in the reference list.

All mentioned comments are only formal.

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for the detailed comments that greatly helped us in the revision process. We appreciate the valuable input provided by reviewers and sincerely hope that the revised manuscript adequately addresses all the issues raised.

1. For the “Figure 1” some information about the sources used for creation of the figure would be useful (for example under the name of the Figure 1).

Thank you for this suggestion – Accordingly, we have followed.

2. In my version of manuscript, the Annexure – A was not included. I hope that the questionnaire will be in We have added the questionnaire in  revised manuscript.

3. In the text of the manuscript different formats (fonts) are used.

Correction has been made in revised manuscript

4. Correct the figures presented in Table 4. One figure should be in only one row of the table.

Correction has been made in revised manuscript.

5. Some corrections are needed also in the “References” section: for example, on page 17 the citation number 5 is already cited on page 14. Citations 66 and 86 are missing in the reference list.

Correction has been made in revised manuscript

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors I carefully re-evaluated your paper, finding it substantially improved with respect to the first version. The lack of the job categories assessment may represent an issue that should be reported in the limitation section, along with a brief discussion about the possible influence of different occupations on the relationship you evaluated. This aspect is of special interest in order to properly address tailored management strategies by specific job tasks, improving work-life balance, well-being and motivation. Best regards

Author Response

Dear Authors I carefully re-evaluated your paper, finding it substantially improved with respect to the first version. The lack of the job categories assessment may represent an issue that should be reported in the limitation section, along with a brief discussion about the possible influence of different occupations on the relationship you evaluated. This aspect is of special interest in order to properly address tailored management strategies by specific job tasks, improving work-life balance, well-being and motivation.

We would especially like to thank the reviewer for pointing these issues. We hope that the revised     manuscript adequately addresses this concern.