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

Abstract

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.