O-348 Behind the Times? Associations of Working Time Autonomy With Psychosomatic Complaints in Health Care Personnel

Introduction Flexibility and autonomy of employees with regard to working hours are currently intensively discussed in many sectors. This study investigates how different aspects of working time autonomy are associated with health outcomes such as psychosomatic complaints in health care personnel. Method Based on data of the German BAuA Working Time survey, a sample of n = 1,093 employees working in the health care sector were included. Working time autonomy was assessed with five Likert items, psychosomatic complaints during the last 12 months with a complaint list. A latent class analysis (LCA) was conducted to identify distinct classes of health care workers with patterns of more or less autonomy. The association with psychosomatic complaints was investigated using generalized linear models. Results Sample Description reveals a mean age of 51.1 year (SD 9.7), 25.3% were female. Psychosomatic health complaints ranged from 0 to 11, with a mean of 4.1 (SD2.9) and stomach discomfort or indigestion, shoulder or neck pain and lower back pain being reported most often. The LCA revealed that three latent classes fitted the data best: 43.9% of health care workers showed a predominantly low, 37.9% medium and 18.1% high degree of working time autonomy. Adjusted for confounding, those with low degrees of autonomy had on average a significantly increased number of psychosomatic complaints, while those with a high degree of autonomy had a reduced number of psychosomatic complaints. Discussion The analyses indicate that it is crucial to prospectively consider working time autonomy as an important factor of health and well-being in health care employees.