Recovery, work-life balance and work experiences important to self-rated health: a questionnaire study on salutogenic work factors among Swedish primary health care employees

BACKGROUND: There is a lack of information on positive work factors among health care workers.

OBJECTIVE: To explore salutogenic work-related factors among primary health care employees.

METHOD: Questionnaire to all employees (n = 599) from different professions in public and private primary health care centers in one health care district in Sweden. The questionnaire, which had a salutogenic perspective, included information on self-rated health from the previously validated SHIS (Salutogenic Health Indicator Scale), psychosocial work environment and experiences, recovery, leadership, social climate, reflection and work-life balance.

RESULTS: The response rate was 84%. A multivariable linear regression model, with SHIS as the dependent variable, showed three significant predictors. Recovery had the highest relationship to SHIS (1 = 0.34), followed by experience of work-life balance (1 = 0.25) and work experiences (1 = 0.20). Increased experience of recovery during working hours related to higher self-rated health independent of recovery outside work.

CONCLUSION: Individual experiences of work, work-life balance and, most importantly, recovery seem to be essential areas for health promotion. Recovery outside the workplace has been studied previously, but since recovery during work was shown to be of great importance in relation to higher self-rated health, more research is needed to explore different recoverystrategies in the workplace.