Berufliche Belastungen, psychische Beanspruchung und Gesundheitskompetenz bei Pflegekräften in der ambulanten Altenpflege: Eine quantitative Online-Befragung in ausgewählten bayerischen Großstädten

Abstract

Background: In their daily work, geriatric nurses are exposed to a variety of stress factors that influence their health over a longer period. Health literacy (HL) can be understood as a protective factor for health. Objectives: The aim of the study is to measure outpatient nurses’ occupational stress, mental strain and HL. Furthermore, correlations between occupational stress and common thoughts of changing occupations as well as correlation between HL and common thoughts of changing occupations were analyzed. Materials and methods: Psychosocial workload and strain were assessed by the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ) and HL was measured by the short form of the European Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q16) within the framework of an online survey in seven large Bavarian cities. Apart from uni- and bivariate evaluations multivariate statistic analysis were conducted. Results: Of the 261 surveyed outpatient nurses work privacy conflicts (87.4%) were the most commonly mentioned psychosocial workload, whereby mental strain is mentioned by 58.5% as being associated with thoughts of changing occupations. A majority of respondents report difficulties in dealing with health-related information. Respondents who reported on heavy psychosocial workload associated with high physical demands (odds ratio [OR]: 6.89; p < 0.001; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.75–17.23) and work privacy conflicts (OR: 4.45; p < 0.01; 95% CI: 1.61–12.26) as well as respondents who showed inadequate or problematic HL are at increased risk of frequent thoughts of changing occupations (OR: 13.48; p < 0.001; 95% CI: 6.55–27.76). Conclusions: The reduction of occupational stress and the promotion of HL of outpatient nurses may be an effective intervention to reduce thoughts of career change.