"It depends on us": employee perspective of healthy working conditions during continual reorganisations in a radiology department.

BACKGROUND

This study focuses on employees' experience of occupational health in a radiology department within a Swedish university hospital during years of continual reorganisations. This department's stable personal health trends in terms of self-rated mental health and sick-leave rates diverged from the general trends of deteriorating working conditions in the hospital.

AIM

The aim was to identify dimensions of working conditions as positive determinants contributing to occupational health in a department of radiology undergoing continual reorganisations.

METHOD

Open-ended interviews with twelve employees were transcribed and analyzed using content-analysis.

RESULT

The employees experienced their new stimulating working tasks and a supporting organizational climate as important contributors to the healthy work condition.

CONCLUSION

The positive effects of handling new technical challenges and the positive organisational climate, which were characterized by mutual trust, as well as work-confidence and respect for each others' competence, seem to function as buffering factors, balancing the negative effects of parallel downsizing and restructuring processes.