O-312 a Well-Being at Work Intervention in Health Care - A Four-Year Follow-Up Study

Abstract Background Well-being at work is associated with sick leaves, work ability, and productivity. Workplaces use substantial resources on various well-being at work interventions. However, demonstrating their effect has been challenging and usually involved comparing results before and right after the project. Knowledge of the long-term effects is scarce. Well-being at work of health care personnel has raised a lot of concern, especially during the pandemic. Aims: We aimed to examine the long-term effects of a well-being at work workshop intervention in a municipal health care organization over a period of four years. Methods The study group consisted of intervention (n=8) and control units (n=39). Well-being at work was measured at baseline (n=615), at two years (n=674) and at four years (n=671). We compared the results of the intervention and control groups, also adjusted for baseline. Results The intervention units’ well-being at work improved significantly from baseline (6.87) to the two-year mark (7.52) and was still at the same level at the four-year mark (7.44). Meanwhile, there was no significant change in the control units. The difference between the groups remained significant when adjusted for baseline. Discussion Our study showed that well-being at work interventions may have long-term effects in health care. Conclusion Results are in line with previous studies which have shown that interventions have the most impact when measures are targeted at work instead of individuals, the whole personnel participate, management is committed, and the results are followed up. Thus, results should be generalized only to interventions that harbour these features.