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Occupational Health among Swedish Occupational Therapists: A Cross-Sectional Study
The Swedish public sector is facing great challenges in recruiting and retaining healthcare professionals, due to increasing sick leave numbers. The aim of this study was to describe Swedish occupational therapists’ occupational health in terms of risk factors in the social and organizational work e...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7277788/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32408696 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17103379 |
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author | Lexén, Annika Kåhlin, Ida Erlandsson, Lena-Karin Håkansson, Carita |
author_facet | Lexén, Annika Kåhlin, Ida Erlandsson, Lena-Karin Håkansson, Carita |
author_sort | Lexén, Annika |
collection | PubMed |
description | The Swedish public sector is facing great challenges in recruiting and retaining healthcare professionals, due to increasing sick leave numbers. The aim of this study was to describe Swedish occupational therapists’ occupational health in terms of risk factors in the social and organizational work environment, occupational balance, and work-related mental health problems. A web survey was emailed to all working members of the Swedish Association of Occupational Therapists (n = 7600) and 3658 answered the survey. The web survey included questions on sociodemographic characteristics, social and organizational environment, occupational balance, and work-related health. The occupational therapists in general rated their workload as high, which was described as leading to increased stress, difficulties doing a good job, and increased job turnover. They also reported having difficulties maintaining occupational balance. Almost a fifth reported having symptoms related to mild incipient exhaustion or a pronounced exhaustion disorder. Almost 60 percent reported having, during the last year, seriously considered seeking new employment as an occupational therapist and 35 percent had seriously intended to leave their profession. In conclusion, there is an urgent need to improve the work situation of occupational therapists. If not, increases in mental health problems, sick leave and job turnover rates may seriously jeopardize the welfare system by eroding healthcare. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7277788 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-72777882020-06-12 Occupational Health among Swedish Occupational Therapists: A Cross-Sectional Study Lexén, Annika Kåhlin, Ida Erlandsson, Lena-Karin Håkansson, Carita Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The Swedish public sector is facing great challenges in recruiting and retaining healthcare professionals, due to increasing sick leave numbers. The aim of this study was to describe Swedish occupational therapists’ occupational health in terms of risk factors in the social and organizational work environment, occupational balance, and work-related mental health problems. A web survey was emailed to all working members of the Swedish Association of Occupational Therapists (n = 7600) and 3658 answered the survey. The web survey included questions on sociodemographic characteristics, social and organizational environment, occupational balance, and work-related health. The occupational therapists in general rated their workload as high, which was described as leading to increased stress, difficulties doing a good job, and increased job turnover. They also reported having difficulties maintaining occupational balance. Almost a fifth reported having symptoms related to mild incipient exhaustion or a pronounced exhaustion disorder. Almost 60 percent reported having, during the last year, seriously considered seeking new employment as an occupational therapist and 35 percent had seriously intended to leave their profession. In conclusion, there is an urgent need to improve the work situation of occupational therapists. If not, increases in mental health problems, sick leave and job turnover rates may seriously jeopardize the welfare system by eroding healthcare. MDPI 2020-05-12 2020-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7277788/ /pubmed/32408696 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17103379 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Lexén, Annika Kåhlin, Ida Erlandsson, Lena-Karin Håkansson, Carita Occupational Health among Swedish Occupational Therapists: A Cross-Sectional Study |
title | Occupational Health among Swedish Occupational Therapists: A Cross-Sectional Study |
title_full | Occupational Health among Swedish Occupational Therapists: A Cross-Sectional Study |
title_fullStr | Occupational Health among Swedish Occupational Therapists: A Cross-Sectional Study |
title_full_unstemmed | Occupational Health among Swedish Occupational Therapists: A Cross-Sectional Study |
title_short | Occupational Health among Swedish Occupational Therapists: A Cross-Sectional Study |
title_sort | occupational health among swedish occupational therapists: a cross-sectional study |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7277788/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32408696 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17103379 |
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