Necessities and needs of intervention for workplace health promotion in residential elderly care?

The current demographic change coincides with an increasing demand for elderly care nursing services as well as a decrease of available nursing personnel. Against this background, efforts should be made to sustain the health and work motivation of the current workforce. In order to adequately design interventions, one needs an appropriate overview of subjective stress and health-related experiences of target groups as well as insight into influencing factors and organisational conditions. The study at hand analyses corresponding relations on the basis of a scientific survey conducted in six residential nursing homes and one institution for assisted accommodation. Survey results show that burnout is the most meaningful health indicator, while the strongest predictor for burnout turned out to be a conflicting relation between work and private life. There were significant differences between groups of staff concerning subjective perceptions of health. Based on these results, the authors argue for an organisational concept of health promotion.