WORKING TIME SATISFACTION+ IN AGING NURSES Camerino D., Samantha Sartori, Campanini P., Conway M.P. and Costa G. And NEXT GROUP Department of Occupational Health, University of Milan (Italy) Tallin, 9th-10th of October 2008

Working time satisfaction Aging Work schedule Working time satisfaction Aging policies sleep Work ability

Satisfaction with working time* Workers’ success to arrange life, relaxation and sleep times without detriment at work. such satisfaction could depend from basic factors: sufficient time for leisure (currently associated with mental integration and wellbeing), working preferred shift schedules (thanks to some influence on planning rota), no or few work/family conflicts, and/or good sleep quality and quantity.

Ageing workers could be: Satisfied with working time since they have been adapting to shiftwork thanks to refined coping strategies and/or suitable shift schedules. On the contrary, they may have developed shift work intolerance as a consequence of different expectations or worsening heal

Hypothesis Is “satisfaction with working time” a protective factor for the work ability of older nurses? Does “satisfaction with working time” with respect to well being and private life differ through age groups as a consequence of underlying different boundaries due to social role and health? And are these variations consistent across the six European countries? Are working hours, job demands, time for leisure activities and restorative sleep, control on working hours and on work/family balance, good predictors of satisfaction with working time?

PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURES The sample includes 3174 nurses from 6 European countries (Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, France, Italy, Poland), working in general hospitals, nursing homes and home care institutions, selected from the baseline (2002-2003) and follow-up (2003-2004) assessments of the Nurses’Early Exit Study (NEXT). All were female and were engaged on rotating 3-shift schedules (nights included); their mean age was 35.7 years (SD 7.5), 12.95 % were over 45 years of age, and the mean work seniority was 13.2 years (SD 7.7). Most of them (80.9% ) were married or living with a partner; only 14.2% were living alone; 36.1% of them had no children, 22.9% had one child, 31.3% had two children, and 9.7% had three or more children.

MEASURES OUTCOME VARIABLES Work Ability Index Satisfaction with working time with respect to: well being and to private life PREDICTORS Weekly Working Hours; Influence on planning rota: Time spent for leisure time “partner/family, “friends and relatives”, “relaxation”, “sport, hobbies or courses”; Work/family conflicts Sleep Job Demand: CONTROL VARIABLES Age Family status Number of children under 7 years of age Satisfaction with working time” measured at time 0

influence

partner

Friend and relatives

relaxation

Sport and hobbies

Work family conflict

Qualitative –quantitative sleep

Is “satisfaction with working time” a protective factor for the work ability of older nurses? Well-being satisfied with working time Well-being not satisfied with working time Private life: satisfied with working time Private life not satisfied with working time

Does “satisfaction with working time” differ through age groups?

are these variations consistent across the six European countries? satisfied work time: df F p-value BE well being 3/ 202 1.458 .227 private life 3/ 201 1.211 .307 DE 3/ 404 .302 .824 3/ 405 .886 .448 FR 3/107 3.774 .013 3/ 107 3.296 .023 IT : well being 3/ 1033 1.364 .252 3/ 1007 4.606 .003 NL 3/ 421 3.526 .015 3/ 418 4.437 .004 POL 3/ 918 .780 .505 3/ 913 1.100 .348

Are working hours, job demands, time for leisure activities and restorative sleep, control on working hours and on work/family balance, good predictors of satisfaction with working time? Estimation of the relevance of covariates on the explanation of the outcome variable: “Satisfaction with working time with regard to well-being” by Random Forest.

Estimation of the relevance of covariates on the explanation of the outcome variable: “Satisfaction with working time with regard to private life” by Random Forests. Instead, when the outcome was “satisfaction with working hours with regard to well-being”, “sleep” was a moderate predictor while “quantitative demand” and “time spent on relaxation” were only weak predictors.

DISCUSSION Satisfaction with working time with regard to “well-being” and “private life” demonstrated a protective effects on work ability, particularly in older nurses. The differences observed in the age relationship with “Satisfaction with working time” throughout the different countries support the hypothesis that ageing management and policy act differently to maintain their older personnel at job. Work – family conflict turned out to be the most important predictors of “satisfaction with working time”. followed by “Quality and quantity sleep”. Coherently, the predictors of “Satisfaction with working time” with regard to private life involved more covariates related to family status, time spent at work and with the partner; while “Satisfaction with working time” related to well-being involved to a lower extent variables such as “demand at job” and “time on relaxation”.

Conclusion We can conclude that “Satisfaction with working time” is an informative variable to be considered in planning intervention focused on maintaining work ability and intention to work of ageing workers. More than concrete elements about length of working hours and shift characteristics, it seems that their adverse impact on work-family conflicts, quantitative and qualitative sleep plays a major role on “satisfaction with working time” and consequently on the maintenance of work ability.