Promotion of work ability among French health care workers-value of the work ability index

The French HCWs who have been studied belong to the French sample of European NEXT Study. This sample consists of 55 public and private institutions in five regions. WAI has been calculated on 4306 subjects out of 5376 because of missing data. More than a third have a moderate or a poor index (29.4% and 5.2%, respectively). Half (50.6%) of the sample have a good index and only 14.9%, an excellent one. The WAI decreases with age: 19.4% of the “less than 30”, 14.6% of the 30-44 years old and 12.3% of the 45 + have an excellent WAI. But, the rate of decrease depends definitely on job demands and especially on physical load. The multivariate analysis showed that in France as well as in the other countries, work demand, uncertainty about treatments, low support from colleagues, and dissatisfaction with psychological support had high odds ratios for a low WAI. Dissatisfaction with physical working conditions and the necessity to maintain uncomfortable postures were the second group of factors with a strong influence on a low WAI. The absence of time for sports or leisure remained strongly linked with a low WAI after an adjustment to the other risk factors. The WAI enables the workplace physician to summarize data which the hospital can use to further its thinking about how to manage jobs and skills.