Befragung von Beschäftigten in der ambulanten Pflege zu psychischen Belastungsfolgen mithilfe des COPSOQs – ein Altersgruppenvergleich

The situation in outpatient care has worsened in recent years and has become more present in society during the pandemic. Outpatient care is characterized by its mobile nature and has different stresses than inpatient care, such as working alone, special climatic conditions, the risk of accidents in road traffic and the local conditions.

The aim of this study is to assess the stress structures of outpatient nursing staff in two age groups using an adapted version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ).

From August 2019 to January 2020 a survey was carried out with 33 nursing staff from 3 outpatient nursing services in Saxony-Anhalt using the COPSOQ. There was an adjustment within the working environment and physical requirements and an additional module to record the conditions of mobile work. An age group comparison and a comparison with the COPSOQ reference database were carried out for the data.

There were no age group differences in many scales and items. Older employees usually showed higher levels of stress but in some areas, such as the sense of community, those under 45 years old performed worse. In the reference group comparison, the reference group performed worse in the COPSOQ scale scores, which mainly affected the working conditions. With respect to the complaints the outpatient nursing staff had similar scores to the reference group despite the better working conditions. A comparison of the stress factors on site and by the customer shows that apart from one factor the conditions in the patients’ apartments are significantly worse.

Despite the small sample size a differentiated picture of the burden structure of nursing staff and a similar pattern of complaints emerges as has already been described in the literature. A reason for this could be that the burden limit for employees in the nursing care system in Germany is becoming increasingly stricter and even good conditions in the nursing services can no longer compensate for the structural and legal framework conditions.