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- Hertting, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Assistant nurses in the Swedish healthcare sector during the 1990s: a hard-hit occupational group with a tough job.
- 2005
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Ingår i: Scandinavian journal of public health. - : SAGE Publications. - 1403-4948 .- 1651-1905. ; 33:2, s. 107-13
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- AIMS: The aim of the study was to explore hospital-based assistant nurses' experiences of psychosocial "stressors", following a period of substantial layoffs (43%) and ongoing healthcare reorganizations. METHODS: An interview study was carried out with 11 assistant nurses working in the same hospital. The interviews took place in 1997, in connection with the last round of redundancies, and were followed up in 1998 and then in 2001. Interviews were audiotaped and transcribed; the content was then analysed. RESULTS: Two main themes were identified from the women's perceived stressors: (a) a hard-hit occupational group experiencing "energy-consuming adjustments", and a "weak position" at the continuing workplace. Job insecurity meant fear of losing valued work tasks in nursing care (de-skilling). The common feature was the duality in the women's descriptions of feeling qualified in nursing care but being treated like a maid, or having intimate practical knowledge but no formal competence; (b) a tougher but underpaid job including "heavy workload" concurrent with "organizational shortcomings", and "frozen salary trends" with a simultaneous feeling of lacking the power to improve their situation. CONCLUSIONS: Our results underscore the importance of the employer's attention to the remaining workers in connection with downsizing, particularly when the reduction of the workforce has been as dramatic as in this case. It is also important to understand the ongoing dilemma (strain) for the assistant nurses, who are faced with increasing demands for further formal qualifications in hospital care, while maintaining a strong occupational desire to keep their highly valued job working close to the patient.
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| 4. |
- Nilsson, Kerstin, 1953-, et al.
(författare)
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"It depends on us" : Employee perspective of healthy working conditions during continual reorganisations in a radiology department
- 2009
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Ingår i: Work. - : IOS Press. - 1051-9815 .- 1875-9270. ; 33:2, s. 191-200
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: This study focuses on employees' experience of occupational health in a radiology department within a Swedish university hospital during years of continual reorganisations. This department's stable personal health trends in terms of self-rated mental health and sick-leave rates diverged from the general trends of deteriorating working conditions in the hospital. Aim: The aim was to identify dimensions of working conditions as positive determinants contributing to occupational health in a department of radiology undergoing continual reorganisations. Method: Open-ended interviews with twelve employees were transcribed and analyzed using content-analysis. Result: The employees experienced their new stimulating working tasks and a supporting organizational climate as important contributors to the healthy work condition. Conclusion: The positive effects of handling new technical challenges and the positive organisational climate, which were characterized by mutual trust, as well as work-confidence and respect for each others' competence, seem to function as buffering factors, balancing the negative effects of parallel downsizing and restructuring processes.
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| 5. |
- Nilsson, Kerstin, 1947, et al.
(författare)
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Pride and confidence at work: potential predictors of occupational health in a hospital setting.
- 2005
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Ingår i: BMC public health. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2458. ; 5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: This study focuses on determinants of a healthy work environment in two departments in a Swedish university hospital. The study is based on previously conducted longitudinal studies at the hospital (1994-2001), concerning working conditions and health outcomes among health care personnel in conjunction with downsizing processes. Overall, there was a general negative trend in relation to mental health, as well as long-term sick leave during the study period. The two departments chosen for the current study differed from the general hospital trend in that they showed stable health development. The aim of the study was to identify and analyse experiential determinants of healthy working conditions. METHODS: Thematic open-ended interviews were carried out with seventeen managers and key informants, representing different groups of co-workers in the two departments. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and an inductive content analysis was made. RESULTS: In the two studied departments the respondents perceived that it was advantageous to belong to a small department, and to work in cooperation-oriented care. The management approaches described by both managers and co-workers could be interpreted as transformational, due to a strain of visionary, delegating, motivating, confirmative, supportive attitudes and a strongly expressed solution-oriented attitude. The daily work included integrated learning activities. The existing organisational conditions, approaches and attitudes promoted tendencies towards a work climate characterised by trust, team spirit and professionalism. In the description of the themes organisational conditions, approaches and climate, two core determinants, work-pride and confidence, for healthy working conditions were interpreted. Our core determinants augment the well-established concepts: manageability, comprehensiveness and meaningfulness. These favourable conditions seem to function as a buffer against the general negative effects of downsizing observed elsewhere in the hospital, and in the literature. CONCLUSION: Research illuminating health-promoting aspects is rather unusual. This study could be seen as explorative. The themes and core dimensions we found could be used as a basis for further intervention studies in similar health-care settings. The result could also be used in future health promotion studies in larger populations. One of the first steps in such a strategy is to formulate relevant questions, and we consider that this study contributes to this.
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| 6. |
- Sandmark, Hélène, 1951-, et al.
(författare)
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Understanding work ability : Experiences of female assistant nurses in elderly care
- 2009
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Ingår i: Work. - Amsterdam : IOS Press. - 1051-9815 .- 1875-9270. ; 34:3, s. 373-383
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Few studies to date have investigated retained work ability. The aim of this explorative study was to describe female assistant nurses’ experiences of high work attendance over the years. The setting is a municipality in mid-Sweden that employs 466 female assistant nurses permanently within municipal elderly care. A qualitative methodology was chosen and thematic, open-ended, interviews were carried out with 12 female assistant nurses. The interviewees were selected from the 117 women who had taken the least amount of sick leave over the past five years, which meant no sick leave at all or no more than 5 days. The interviews were transcribed verbatim, and thereafter a content analysis was carried out. Three main themes connected with the aim of the study emerged from the interviews: “a desirable job, despite low status”, “supportive social networks”, and “coping ability”. In order to strengthen work ability among female employees in elderly care, the findings indicate that it is crucial to support mobility in working life, and to promote social support and networks at the workplace and in private life, as well as a coping-oriented approach to health issues and social life.
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