Mediating effects of social support between telework and well-being: protocol for a systematic review

Abstract

Introduction

Research on telework has grown dramatically in recent years, leading to a fragmented set of findings on its effect on workers’ well-being. One of the most studied social mechanisms concerns how telework alters the transmission of social support between family members and coworkers, which turns out to be a mediating factor between teleworking and well-being. This research contributes to the understanding of this issue by analysing the existing evidence on the effect of telework on social support and well-being before, during and after the pandemic.

Methods and analysis

Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we will systematically synthesise evidence about the mediating effect of social support in the relation between telework and well-being. Three databases will be used to search the literature addressing this issue: Social Sciences Citation Index (Web of Science), Sociological Abstracts (PROQUEST) and SocINDEX with full text (EBSCOhost). Quantitative and qualitative studies published in peer-reviewed journals, in English and French, from January 2000 to June 2024 will be included in this systematic review. Double screening procedure with data quality assessments will be carried out by three researchers independently for up to 20% of the studies. Conflicts will be resolved for the completion of the remaining 80% of the studies by two researchers. The literature review aims to systematise the links between telework, social support and well-being by identifying the different dimensions and mechanisms that link these three aspects. The information will be synthesised using Qualitative Content Analysis. Additional analysis will be performed using the term frequency–inverse document frequency (TF-IDF).

Ethics and dissemination

This is a protocol for a systematic review. Aggregate published data is used; therefore, no ethical approval is required. The results of the review will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals and presentations at conferences.

PROSPERO registration number

CRD42024554590.

STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY.

• This review will synthesise evidence from January 2000 to June 2024 about the mediating role of social support between teleworking and well-being.

• The systematic review will follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines.

• A double screening procedure, with data quality assessments, will be carried out by three researchers independently for up to 20% of the studies.

• A Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) will be performed to synthesise the results.

• The term frequency–inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) will be used to quantitively synthesise the occurrence of key dimensions of well-being, social support and telework.

Introduction

Rationale

With its massive and steady growth in recent years, remote work emerged as a new global trend and some of the most important drivers of social change. According to the most recent data, teleworking rates in the world’s major economies have more than doubled compared to prepandemic levels.¹ Research on these new forms of working has thus grown enormously, resulting in a fragmented picture of findings, that still needs to be strengthened to understand their effects on workers’ well-being. One of the most studied social mechanisms in the existing literature concerns how it changes the way we exchange social support with our relatives and colleagues.² Existing evidence suggests that teleworking is diversifying the patterns of communication with bosses and managers, as well as the way in which forms of mentoring, emotional or instrumental support are exchanged between colleagues. The present work therefore seeks to systematically clarify the framework of evidence on the effects that teleworking has on social support and, in turn, their links to individual well-being. The relevance of studying such mechanisms is well known, as it has been shown in different times and contexts that the quality of social relationships is a key determinant of health and well-being.^{3 4} With these objectives in view, this research contributes to the understanding of teleworking by systematically analysing the evidence that has emerged on these issues before, during and after the pandemic.²

Aims and objectives

The study analyses systematically the existing evidence on the effects of teleworking on social support and individual well-being. Social support is defined as the process through which individuals’ access and mobilise resources conveyed by personal contacts, including information exchange, forms of mentoring, guidance, instrumental and emotional aids.⁵ Thus, this systematic review aims to address the following question: (1) what are the mediating mechanisms of social support in the relationship between telework arrangements and individual well-being, considering aspects such as mental health and quality of life? To answer this question, the study will examine the positive and negative associations between teleworking and social support across different dimensions: for example, (a) the composition and number of personal contacts, (b) the frequencies of in-person versus online interactions, (c) the presence of barriers to the mobilisation of social support, for example, conflictive ties and (d) and the distinction between the subjective perception of social support and its objective measurement through network indicators.

Methods

Protocol and registration

This protocol establishes the rationale, aims, objectives and methods of the systematic review and is based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Protocols (PRISMA-P) guidelines.⁶ This guideline is specially designed for the submission of systematic review protocols (online supplemental appendix 1). The protocol was registered on PROSPERO (CRD42024554590) on May 2024.

Eligibility criteria

We focus our investigation on the role played by social support as a mediator in the relationship between teleworking and well-being in adults (age 18+). In this context, teleworking is defined as any work performed outside the employer’s premises, using any available technology. This study will include quantitative and qualitative studies that offer evidence of how social support influences well-being, encompassing indicators of mental health and quality of life. Regardless of their methodological approach, we consider all those papers addressing mediating mechanisms concerning (a) the effects of teleworking on social support and (b) its direct or indirect consequences on well-being. Well-being is a multifaceted concept, and for the aim of reproducibility, the definition of ‘well-being’ follows the one given in ref.2 To account for the diverse operationalisations in the literature, this study includes a wide range of measures related to common mental disorders (CMDs), mental health and quality of life. CMDs, as defined in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th Edition, encompass conditions such as depression, anxiety and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, which are commonly studied in relation to screen exposure. In addition, given the focus on teleworking’s effect on family dynamics and work–life balance, indicators of subjective well-being and quality of life are included. We will incorporate studies that consider teleworking categorisations without limitations on the types of activities, work modes, rates or contexts. Peer-reviewed articles in English and French published from 1 January 2000 to the registration of the research protocol will be included, specifically targeting studies focused on the mediating effects of social support. Studies focusing on musculoskeletal health or reversing the teleworking–well-being causality will be excluded. The inclusion/exclusion criteria are summed up in table 1.

Table 1. Inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Include	Exclude
Studies that look at telework activities as a predictor Telework activities are defined as any work carried out outside the employer’s premises using information and communication technologies Studies that include telework activities at any rate, including full-time or part-time activities Telework activities can take place in any setting, by any professional category, in any segment of the labour market	Studies that consider telework activity as an outcome variable
Studies that consider well-being as an outcome Studies that use mental health, common mental disorders, or quality of life as outcome variables Studies that consider social support as a mediating factor between telework and well-being	Studies that consider well-being as a predictor or mediator variable Studies that do not investigate the effect of social support Studies that consider social support as the outcome or the only predictor
Peer-reviewed scientific studies Quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods designs	Grey literature Literature reviews
Studies including the working population (aged 18 and over) in any setting	Studies that focused on any other population
Studies published between January 2000 and June 2024.	Studies published before 2000.
Studies written in English and French	Studies written in any other language

Information sources

Our search will span three bibliographic databases: Web of Science Core Collection, Sociological Abstracts (PROQUEST) and SocINDEX with full text (EBSCOhost). This strategic database selection aligns with our goal to uncover potential social mechanisms, such as social support, which could shed lights on the links between teleworking and well-being. Additionally, we will scrutinise the references of articles that satisfy our inclusion criteria to ensure no relevant sources will be overlooked, thereby updating and enriching the existing body of research.

Search strategy

This study builds on an existing scoping review that conformed to PRISMA 2020 guidelines⁶ (see online supplemental appendix 2) and that explored the relationship between telework and well-being up to December 2022. One key outcome of such a scoping review is the identification of social support as a central mediating factor in the relationship between teleworking and well-being. However, due to the extensively large body of literature reviewed, we could not have delved sufficiently into the particular mechanisms that link telework and well-being by means of social support. Given that this study narrows down the research question to delve into the role of social support as a mediator, we will draw on the existing search and then update it to include newly published work (December 2022–May 2024). This update will use the 57 keywords used in ref.2 on the same selected databases to ensure coherence across the samples of studies. Keywords have been translated into French as part of the update process. The number of hits per database is presented in online supplemental appendix 3.

(“working from home” OR "telework" OR "telecommuting" OR “remote work” OR “distance work” OR flexiplace OR “virtual work” OR “distributed work” OR “flexible work” OR “part-time telecommuting” OR “smart work” OR “agile work” OR “mobile work” OR “ICT-based mobile work” OR “ICT-based work”) AND ("Health" OR “Mental Health” OR “Mental Distress” OR “Mental well-being” OR “subjective well-being” OR “Emotional well-being” OR “Ill-being” OR “Psychological stress” OR “Psychological well-being” OR “psychological distress” OR "Distress" OR Stress OR Anxiety OR Burnout OR Depression OR Disengagement OR “Emotional exhaustion” OR "Exhaustion" OR "Fatigue" OR “Job satisfaction” OR “Satisfaction with life” OR “work satisfaction” OR “euphoria” OR "affection" OR "joy" OR "sadness" OR "worry" OR "frustration" OR "helplessness" OR “positive mood” OR “depressive mood” OR “emotional stability” OR "optimism" OR “positive emotion” OR “negative emotion” OR "negativity" OR "resilience" OR “self-esteem” OR “personal growth” OR “Sleep deprivation” OR “Sleeping problem*”).

Study records

All the identified references will be imported to the Covidence systematic review software.⁷ After removing duplicates, all the authors (MV, JFG and GF) will independently screen titles and abstracts against the inclusion criteria. We will screen 20% of the sample jointly and ensure that we establish an inter-rater reliability of at least 80%. Any discrepancies will be resolved through discussion among the authors before advancing to the full-text screening phase. For the remaining records, at least two authors will independently review them, and conflicts will again be discussed by all the authors before advancing to the full-text screening phase. Once titles and abstracts are screened, the authors will proceed to screen full-text articles against the inclusion criteria and extract relevant data. The same procedure is held for the full-text screening. In the first phase, 20% of the papers will be screened independently by the three authors, and conflicts will be discussed before proceeding with the remaining 80% of the papers by at least two reviewers independently.

Data items

For the articles that met the inclusion criteria, relevant data from each study will be extracted into an Excel spreadsheet. It will encompass 29 different elements related to the following aspects: aim of the study, type of population, sample size, research design, methods, year, geographical context, teleworking activities analysed (eg, intensity, environmental characteristics), methodologies used to measure such activities, well-being indicators used and their measurement, and results (which included summary statistics, coefficient, direction and significance, key findings and recommendations).

Outcome and prioritisation

This study will take into account indicators of social support that subjectively or objectively operationalise the exchange of social resources, such as information exchange, forms of mentoring and guidance and instrumental and emotional aids.⁵ Moreover, we will take into account measure of well-being in relation to mental health and quality of life. One type of indicator will refer to diagnostic tools to assess CMDs.⁸ Moreover, as much of the literature on telework assesses workers’ mental health without relying on diagnostic criteria, we will include studies that refer to moderate mental issues, for example, forms of exhaustion or psychological distress, measured using a single item or self-reported measures. Furthermore, given the wide interest among scholars of teleworking on how it changes family dynamics and work–life balance, we also included those research studies that used indicators relating to people’s quality of life, measured through indicators of life and job satisfaction, energy and vigour or work engagement.⁹

Critical appraisal

We will examine the quality and transparency of each study employing the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme and the McGill Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool for mixed-methods designs.¹⁰ This process will involve scrutinising each study for potential biases that might affect the results, such as selection, detection and reporting biases. This process is carried out in the second phase of full-text screening and will then be carried out independently by the three researchers in 20% of the studies.

Synthesis of results

Given the different methodologies, quantitative and qualitative studies will be included in this systematic review, and our data synthesis will be done through Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA).¹¹ QCA is a technique that aims to reduce the complexity of a body of narrative information, extract data from selected articles and identify the key dimensions that scholars have highlighted through the creation of a coding scheme. Therefore, the use of QCA allows us to narratively synthesise the results of the studies included in our systematic review.¹² Opting for a narrative approach in the context of systematic review is a well-established and validated approach (eg,¹³ when the design of the screened research does not allow performing a meta-analysis).

For each quantitative study, we will retrieve the effect size and direction of the association according to the statistical method used. This information will be shown in one table to summarise the information from each research. Moreover, the text of the results section, together with the discussion, will be qualitatively analysed. For the qualitative papers, we will focus on the results that explicitly refer to our research question, and we will qualitatively analyse them with QCA. We will label papers with supporting codes when appropriate (eg, whether they perform a quantitative, qualitative or mixed-methods data analysis). This will allow us to reach a balance between the construction of an overarching narrative and the specificities of the studies considered to minimise the risk of overgeneralising and missing potential heterogeneity between their characteristics.

To further complement this analysis, a frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) score will be computed to quantify the relative importance of each key dimension identified in this body of literature. The computation of this score is a classic approach in the study of text analysis and is based on the frequency of appearance of a word within a document.¹⁴ The score represents the ratio of the total number of documents to the number in which the dimension is identified within them. Based on the information produced by this analysis, it will be possible to visualise a network of co-occurrences of different dimensions, thus identifying which of them are shared by multiple articles. This approach will help us to narratively reconstruct the results following the recommendations of the Economic and Social Research Council Guideline of Narrative Synthesis¹⁵ and the guidelines of the Synthesis Without Meta-analysis project.¹⁶

Ethics and dissemination

This is a protocol for a systematic review. An aggregate of published data is used; therefore, no ethical approval is required. The results of the review will be disseminated to peer-reviewed journals and presented at conferences.

Patient and public involvement

Patients and/or the public were not involved in this study.