TElewoRk-RelAted Stress (TERRA) as an emerging problem during the Covid-19 Pandemic: a Systematic Review

Introduction: In recent years, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, an increasing number of people were forced to stay at home. Working from home seems to have resulted in an increase of TElewoRk-RelAted stress (TERRA), defined as physical and mental stress due to telework, including the inability to cope with new information and communication technologies in a healthy manner, recognized as technostress. TERRA is a primary concern for Occupational Health worldwide, affecting psychophysical health and productivity. The aim of this systematic review is to determine if and how telework has actually increased TERRA levels in workers and its impacts, during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Materials and methods: Following the PRISMA statements, a systematic review was performed across three scientific databases (Pubmed, ISI Web of Knowledge and Scopus), using “telework”, “technostress” and “COVID-19” (and relative MeSH terms) as keywords. The research was restricted to articles in Italian and English, published up to August 2021. Results: As results, 518 articles were found; after removing duplicates, and exclusion based on title, abstract, and full text, 36 articles were included in the review. Most of articles demonstrate that women and who work at distance in full time mode show higher TERRA levels. Conclusions: This systematic review highlights some of the emerging psychophysical health issues related to TERRA, and offers an overview into the modern challenges workers have to face, in order to improve Total Worker Health through Occupational Medicine.