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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam

Healthcare Workers Well-Being and Safety (WeBeSafe): Ensuring a Sustainable Workforce in the Healthcare sector for the 21st Century

Alternative title: Sikkerhet og helse blant helsearbeidere

Awarded: NOK 8.0 mill.

There is a global need for more healthcare professionals and a better retention of qualified healthcare personnel. A well-functioning healthcare system with qualified personnel is important to respond to a population's needs and expectations. This has become emphatically clear during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hospitals are run by healthcare workers who work shifts to monitor and treat in-patients around the clock. Shift work is however associated with negative health effects, increased risk of accidents and sickness absence, and higher turnover intention, but the causal factors and mechanisms are not fully understood. This project will address the urgent need to take advantage of new and better-quality data sources to advance our understanding of the strains of shift work and to identify effective interventions to improve the retention, well-being, and safety of healthcare workers. These data sources include: - Payroll data as a measure of exposure to unfavourable working hours and shift work. - Sickness absence data and data on adverse events obtained from the local records kept by the hospitals. - Radar technology to record healthcare workers' sleep in an objective, low-cost, and non-intrusive way. We will use pioneering methods to generate new knowledge about: a) how shift work is associated with adverse events by compiling new and objective data sources, b) how shift work affects healthcare workers sleep, c) compile three objective data sources and untangle the role of sleep on the relationship between shift work and adverse events, sickness absence and turnover intention, and d) evaluate the effect of increased flexibility in working hours on turnover intention, sleep, health, well-being and safety. In sum, we aim to provide vital knowledge about causes and mechanisms of accidents and sickness absence among healthcare workers, and how to intervene to improve well-being and safety of healthcare workers.

A well-functioning healthcare system with qualified personnel is important to respond to a population's needs and expectations – this has become abundantly clear over the last couple of years with the COVID-19 pandemic. Hospitals are run by healthcare workers who work shifts to monitor and treat in-patients around the clock. Shift work is however associated with negative health effects, increased risk of accidents and sickness absence, and higher turnover intention, but the causal factors and mechanisms are not fully understood. This proposal will address the urgent need to take advantage of new and better-quality data sources to advance our understanding of the strains of shift work and to identify effective interventions to improve the retention, well-being, and safety of healthcare workers. We will use pioneering methods to generate new knowledge about: a) how shift work is associated with work-related incidents / accidents (adverse events) by compiling new and objective data sources, b) how shift work affects healthcare workers objectively measured sleep, c) compile three objective data sources and untangle the moderating role of sleep on the relationship between shift work exposure and adverse events, sickness absence and turnover intention, and d) evaluate the effect of increased flexibility in working time on turnover intention, sleep, health, well-being and safety. In sum, we aim to provide vital knowledge about causes and mechanisms of accidents and sickness absence among healthcare workers, and how to intervene to improve well-being and safety of healthcare workers.

Funding scheme:

FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam