Acute and long-term recovery from work: a cross-sectional study among Finnish retail sector employees

This cross-sectional study of retail sector employees aimed to examine psychophysiological strain, as well as acute and long-term recovery from work. The volunteer participants were 36 healthy retail employees (94% women) working in six service stations, four hypermarkets, and one convenience store in Finland. Acute recovery and psychophysiological strain (metabolic equivalent, MET) were assessed using 24-hour heart rate variability (HRV) measurements collected in April-June 2024, while long-term recovery was evaluated using the occupational fatigue exhaustion/recovery scale (OFER) based on survey data gathered in January-February 2024 (69% response rate). HRV-based acute recovery was average overall, whereas about one-third of the employees reported inadequate long-term recovery. On average, the psychophysiological strain during the workday was light-to-moderate (2.8 ± 0.9 MET), but the workday also included periods of moderate-to-heavy workload (5.2 ± 1.3 MET). The observed difference between acute and long-term recovery highlights the importance of assessing both by combining measurements and self-reports.