[Pilot study examining a profession-oriented rehabilitation concept for nursing professions]

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health
• Psychosomatic Medicine
• Rehabilitation Psychology

Background:

• Nursing professions face high psychological distress, absenteeism, and early retirement.
• Existing rehabilitation may not adequately address workplace-specific demands for nurses.
• Workplace-oriented interventions are hypothesized to improve return-to-work rates.

Purpose of the Study:

• To pilot a novel workplace-oriented medical rehabilitation program for nursing professionals.
• To assess changes in work-related attitudes and depressiveness following the intervention.
• To compare the intervention's effects against a standard depression treatment.

Main Methods:

• A pilot study involving 145 depressed nursing professionals and 147 depressed non-nursing professionals.
• Utilized MANOVA and ANOVAs to compare work-related attitudes (AVEM) at baseline.
• Assessed changes in work attitudes and depressiveness (BDI-II) post-intervention using MANOVA, repeated measures ANOVAs, and mixed models.

Main Results:

• Nurses initially showed higher 'willingness to work to exhaustion' and lower 'distancing ability' than non-nurses.
• Post-intervention, nurses reported reduced 'subjective importance of work,' 'willingness to work to exhaustion,' and 'striving for perfection.'
• Significant improvements were noted in 'distancing ability' and 'life satisfaction'; depression scores improved similarly across intervention and control groups.

Conclusions:

• The workplace-oriented intervention effectively modified maladaptive work-related attitudes in nursing professionals.
• Improvements in depressiveness were comparable to standard depression treatments.
• The program shows promise for addressing specific occupational challenges faced by nurses.