Identifying work ability promoting factors for home care aides and assistant nurses

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health
• Psychosocial Factors in the Workplace
• Healthcare Worker Well-being

Background:

• Workplace health promotion requires considering psychological aspects alongside physical health.
• Home care services face increasing psychosocial strain, high musculoskeletal disorder rates, and low work sustainability.
• A balance between employee resources and work demands is crucial for sustained work ability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify factors promoting work ability and self-efficacy in home care aides and assistant nurses.
• To understand the specific influences on work ability and self-efficacy within these distinct healthcare roles.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional study in northern Sweden with 58 care aides and 79 assistant nurses.
• Self-administered questionnaire with a 46% response rate.
• Hierarchical multiple regression analyses to determine predictors of self-efficacy and work ability.

Main Results:

• For assistant nurses, personal safety, self-efficacy, and musculoskeletal well-being predicted work ability (R2adj=0.36).
• For care aides, safety climate, seniority, and age predicted work ability (R2adj=0.29).
• Self-efficacy was linked to safety climate and physical demands in both groups; assistant nurses' self-efficacy was also influenced by sex and age.

Conclusions:

• Factors influencing work ability differ between care aides and assistant nurses.
• Self-efficacy, personal safety, and musculoskeletal well-being are key for assistant nurses; safety climate, age, and seniority for care aides.
• Interventions should target modifiable factors like self-efficacy, safety climate, physical demands, and musculoskeletal well-being to enhance work ability.