Organisationale und personale Determinanten des Erhalts von Arbeitsfähigkeit und Gesundheit älterer Pflegekräfte (ODEM)

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Winfried Hacker; Professor Dr. Matthias Kliegel; Professor Dr. Jürgen Wegge
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: from 2010 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 186638718

The employability and work motivation of the individual is influenced by a variety of factors such as qualifications, family responsibilities, the nature of the working tasks and working environment, as well as organizational and national regulations directed to these factors. Our project examines the question of how the health and work ability of younger and older employees can be preserved and promoted in the demographically problematic area of geriatric nursing. Based on a complex multi-dimensional model we have measured several organizational, task-specific and personal determinants that should affect health and work ability using a combination of field surveys and laboratory assess-ments at three time points (ODEM I). Data stems from 250 younger and 250 older caregivers working in 80 teams coming from 25 inpatient and 25 outpatient organizational units. The continuation of the project has two sub-goals. It is firstly aimed to realize three additional measurements in two years with about 600 nurses who come from 60 of these teams. As a result, for a large proportion of this age- balanced sample (about 250 geriatric nurses) six consecutive measurement points will be available within three years. Based on this data, some new insights are possible. Differences in the work ability and health of younger and older caregivers as well as the determinants of the development of these variables can be identified over the entire observation period. The project further allows drawing conclusions regarding potential causal processes underlying the expected differences. A second objective of the proposed project is the evaluation of an innovative training intervention that is based on the so far derived findings. We will use the additional three new measurement points within a wait-control-group-followup-design analyzing proximal (knowledge change, changes in management behavior) and related subjective and objective outcome variables (changes in work organization, self-perceived work ability, health indicators). Special features of this training are that it examines the effect of combinations of organizational-level and personal (behavioral) interventions and that it is designed in an age-differentiated way both with respect to participants and training contents.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland