Affiliations: Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy Department,
General Medicine Department C, Copenhagen University Hospital, Gentofte,
Denmark | Technology and Social Change Institute, Linköping
University, Linköping, Sweden
Note: [] Corresponding author: Hans Jørgen Bendixen, Occupational
Therapy and Physiotherapy Department, General Medicine Department C, Copenhagen
University Hospital, Gentofte, Denmark. Tel.: +45 39 77 39 51; Fax: +45 39 77
73 80; E-mail: engholmvej23@webspeed.dk
Abstract: OBJECTIVE: To investigate occupational therapists' job satisfaction
under a changing regime by using a time-geographic approach focusing on the
therapists' everyday working lives. PARTICIPANTS: Nine occupational
therapists at the Copenhagen University Hospital, Gentofte, Denmark. METHOD: A mixed-method design was employed. Occupational therapists kept
time-geographic diaries, and the results from them were grounded for
individual, semi-structured in-depth interviews. Individual reflections on
everyday working life were recorded. Transcribed statements from the interviews
were analysed to determine factors influencing job satisfaction. RESULTS: The nine therapists kept diaries for one day a month for a total of 70
preselected days over a period of nine months; six participated in individual
interviews. Four factors constraining OT job satisfaction were revealed.
Economic concerns, new professional paradigms and methods in combination with a
new organisational structure for the occupational therapy service caused
uncertainty. In addition, decreasing possibilities for supervision by
colleagues influenced job satisfaction. Opportunities for experiencing autonomy
in everyday working life were described as facilitators for job satisfaction. CONCLUSION: The time-geographic and interview methods were useful in
focusing on the job satisfaction of occupational therapists, who provided
individual interpretations of the balance between autonomy and three types of
constraints in everyday working life. The constraints related to organisation,
power relations and – not least – how the organisational project of the
department fitted in with OTs' individual projects. Matching of organisational
and individual projects is of crucial importance, not only for OTs but for most
workplaces where individuals are employed to serve patients in the healthcare sector.
Keywords: Autonomy, constraints, diary, everyday work life, time-geography
