Illness narratives and chronic patients' sustainable employability: The impact of positive work stories.
The number of workers with a chronic disease is steadily growing in industrialized countries. To cope with and to give meaning to their illness, patients construct illness narratives, which are widely shared across patient societies, personal networks and the media. This study investigates the influ...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2020-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228581 |
| _version_ | 1818405196628230144 |
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| author | Inge M Brokerhof Jan Fekke Ybema P Matthijs Bal |
| author_facet | Inge M Brokerhof Jan Fekke Ybema P Matthijs Bal |
| author_sort | Inge M Brokerhof |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The number of workers with a chronic disease is steadily growing in industrialized countries. To cope with and to give meaning to their illness, patients construct illness narratives, which are widely shared across patient societies, personal networks and the media. This study investigates the influence of these shared illness narratives on patient's working lives, by examining the impact of reading a positive work story versus negative work story on patients' sustainable employability. We expected that this relationship would be mediated by positive emotions and the extent to which the story enhanced awareness of desires future selves, and moderated by identification with story character. An online field experiment with 166 people with Inflammatory Bowel Disease in The Netherlands showed that while reading a positive story of a patient with the same condition significantly increased positive emotions, these emotions did not influence sustainable employability. However, reading a positive story was related to higher sustainable employability when patients became more aware of their desired possible future work selves. Finally, identification with the story character moderated the impact of story type on sustainable employability. This study showed that personal engagement with a positive work story of a fellow patient is related to higher sustainable employability. Findings can be helpful for health professionals to empower employees with a chronic disease. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-14T08:52:12Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-ad6b8588c00445cda5b5f26439cdd0ff |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-14T08:52:12Z |
| publishDate | 2020-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj.art-ad6b8588c00445cda5b5f26439cdd0ff2022-12-21T23:09:01ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032020-01-01152e022858110.1371/journal.pone.0228581Illness narratives and chronic patients' sustainable employability: The impact of positive work stories.Inge M BrokerhofJan Fekke YbemaP Matthijs BalThe number of workers with a chronic disease is steadily growing in industrialized countries. To cope with and to give meaning to their illness, patients construct illness narratives, which are widely shared across patient societies, personal networks and the media. This study investigates the influence of these shared illness narratives on patient's working lives, by examining the impact of reading a positive work story versus negative work story on patients' sustainable employability. We expected that this relationship would be mediated by positive emotions and the extent to which the story enhanced awareness of desires future selves, and moderated by identification with story character. An online field experiment with 166 people with Inflammatory Bowel Disease in The Netherlands showed that while reading a positive story of a patient with the same condition significantly increased positive emotions, these emotions did not influence sustainable employability. However, reading a positive story was related to higher sustainable employability when patients became more aware of their desired possible future work selves. Finally, identification with the story character moderated the impact of story type on sustainable employability. This study showed that personal engagement with a positive work story of a fellow patient is related to higher sustainable employability. Findings can be helpful for health professionals to empower employees with a chronic disease.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228581 |
| spellingShingle | Inge M Brokerhof Jan Fekke Ybema P Matthijs Bal Illness narratives and chronic patients' sustainable employability: The impact of positive work stories. PLoS ONE |
| title | Illness narratives and chronic patients' sustainable employability: The impact of positive work stories. |
| title_full | Illness narratives and chronic patients' sustainable employability: The impact of positive work stories. |
| title_fullStr | Illness narratives and chronic patients' sustainable employability: The impact of positive work stories. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Illness narratives and chronic patients' sustainable employability: The impact of positive work stories. |
| title_short | Illness narratives and chronic patients' sustainable employability: The impact of positive work stories. |
| title_sort | illness narratives and chronic patients sustainable employability the impact of positive work stories |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228581 |
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