NCT07520058

Shortened Working Hours for Nurses in Elderly Care and Municipal Home Care - Work Environment, Work-life Balance & Well-being

Shortened Working Hours for Registered Nurses in Elderly Care and Municipal Home Care - How is it Linked to Nurse-rated Work Environment, Work-life Balance and Well-being?

• Status: Not Yet Recruiting
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 190 (estimated)
• Sponsor: University of Gavle · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: —
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Elderly care and municipal home care have and are facing several challenges with an increasing number of elderly people and fewer people of working age. In addition, welfare staff also have more sick days on average than other areas. Stress, mental ill health and intention to leave work are common. Furthermore, there is a national and international shortage of staff and especially a shortage of specialist nurses, e.g., elderly care and primary care. Strengthening the positive aspects will be central and creating good conditions for staff and thus hopefully also better care and welfare. A sustainable working life where the staff thrive, experience learning, meaning, well-being, good structural conditions, work-life balance and want to stay in the long term. In one of the municipalities in this research project, they will introduce shortened working hours for registered nurses. A shortened working hours (reduced full-time standard by 3.25 hours/week with maintained salary) during a one-year pilot project for nurses in elderly care and municipal home care. Current full-time standard 38.25 hours/week. The municipality has initiated, decided and will implement the changes and the researchers are asked to follow the project. Nurses from the municipality implementing reduced working hours and nurses from municipalities without changed working hours will be invited to participate in the study. The nurses will answer a questionnaire before and after the changes (6 and 12 months after the first data collection). The overall aim of the research is to investigate registered nurses' experiences of their work environment, health, well-being and intention to quit/remain, as well as the quality of care, nurse turnover and sick leave. To study the relationship between shortening working hours or not, nurses' assessments of the work environment, intention to quit/remain, health, well-being and quality of care. The main research questions are: * What are the relationships over time between working hours reduction or not, sociodemographic factors, nurse-rated work environment, intention to quit/remain, health, well-being and nurse-rated quality of care (follow-up after 12 months)? * What changes occur over time in nurses' assessments of work environment, intention to quit/remain, health, well-being and quality of care, and are there any differences compared to a comparison group/municipalities?

Detailed description

The research project has a prospective design and all nurses (approximately 40) in the municipality where the working hours reduction is implemented will be asked to participate, as well as all nurses in five comparison municipalities (approximately 150). Data analysis: For the correlation analyses, bivariate correlation analyses and regression analyses (univariate and multiple) or Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) will be used. GEE to take clustering into account. For the comparative tests, t-test or ANOVA/ANCOVA will be used or equivalent non-parametric tests if the data is not normally distributed. To study relationships in a multiple linear regression analysis, 50+8\*m (people) are required, where m is the number of variables included in the relationship analysis. In this case, we expect to use approximately 5-10 explanatory variables, one of which is working time reduction or not, i.e. approximately 90-130 participants. We will invite approximately 190 nurses and expect that some nurses will decline or drop out over time.

Conditions

• Registered Nurses

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Shortened working hours	In one of the municipalities in this research project, they will introduce shortened working hours for registered nurses. A shortened working hours (reduced full-time standard by 3.25 hours/week with maintained salary) during a one-year pilot project for nurses in elderly care and municipal home care. Current full-time standard 38.25 hours/week. The municipality has initiated, decided and will implement the changes and the researchers are asked to follow the project.

Timeline

• Start date: 2026-04-20
• Primary completion: 2027-06-30
• Completion: 2027-06-30
• First posted: 2026-04-09
• Last updated: 2026-04-09

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Sweden