Outcomes and Acceptability of the Community-Based Occupational Well-Being Intervention Among Health Care...

To evaluate the outcomes and acceptability of the Community-based Participatory Occupational Well-being Intervention for Educators.

This pilot study used a sequential explanatory mixed-method intervention study design in which the post-intervention qualitative data were embedded in the quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test data to explain and expand the intervention outcomes and to evaluate intervention acceptability.

This study received an ethical statement from the UEF Committee on Research Ethics (7/2021 15.4.2021) and followed the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

The quantitative pre-and post-test data were collected using an electronic questionnaire among health care educators (intervention n = 19, comparison n = 22). The 1-year intervention included (i) an online course, formation of (ii) an occupational well-being development team, which (iii) planned and (iv) implemented community-specific development actions. Qualitative interview data were collected from participants (n = 9) 3 months post-intervention. The quantitative data were analysed statistically and the qualitative data by deductive-inductive content analysis. The main results were merged into a joint display as mixed-method meta-inferences.

Positive changes were found in occupational well-being, promoting activities and workplace support. Educators experienced improvements in work organisation processes and reflection on occupational well-being issues. The study found no significant change in the overall self-assessed level of occupational well-being. The intervention framework was considered functional, with workload issues as the main barriers.

The main limitations of this study were a small sample size and a long intervention period, which challenged participant engagement and outcome evaluation.

The intervention enables community-level occupational well-being development, and it can be applied in health care educators' work communities. The study suggests refining the intervention in terms of information provision, time resources and community-level orientation and discussion.