Department of Management and Organisation, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Department of Social, Health and Organisational Psychology Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2020 Feb 10;15(2):e0228581. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228581. eCollection 2020.
The number of workers with a chronic disease is steadily growing in industrialized countries. To cope with and to give meaning to their illness, patients construct illness narratives, which are widely shared across patient societies, personal networks and the media. This study investigates the influence of these shared illness narratives on patient's working lives, by examining the impact of reading a positive work story versus negative work story on patients' sustainable employability. We expected that this relationship would be mediated by positive emotions and the extent to which the story enhanced awareness of desires future selves, and moderated by identification with story character. An online field experiment with 166 people with Inflammatory Bowel Disease in The Netherlands showed that while reading a positive story of a patient with the same condition significantly increased positive emotions, these emotions did not influence sustainable employability. However, reading a positive story was related to higher sustainable employability when patients became more aware of their desired possible future work selves. Finally, identification with the story character moderated the impact of story type on sustainable employability. This study showed that personal engagement with a positive work story of a fellow patient is related to higher sustainable employability. Findings can be helpful for health professionals to empower employees with a chronic disease.
工业化国家中患有慢性病的工人数量正在稳步增长。为了应对和理解他们的疾病，患者构建了疾病叙事，这些叙事在患者群体、个人网络和媒体中广泛传播。本研究通过考察阅读积极的工作故事与消极的工作故事对患者可持续就业能力的影响，来研究这些共享的疾病叙事对患者工作生活的影响。我们预计，这种关系将通过积极情绪和故事增强对未来自我愿望的认识程度来调节，同时受对故事人物的认同的调节。荷兰一项针对 166 名炎症性肠病患者的在线现场实验表明，阅读同病情患者的积极故事虽然显著增加了积极情绪，但这些情绪并不会影响可持续就业能力。然而，当患者更清楚地意识到自己未来理想的工作自我时，阅读积极的故事与更高的可持续就业能力有关。最后，对故事人物的认同调节了故事类型对可持续就业能力的影响。本研究表明，与同病患者的积极工作故事产生个人共鸣与更高的可持续就业能力有关。研究结果有助于卫生专业人员赋予慢性病患者权力。
