Social and health care assistants and helpers class 2004, 2. follow up, 2006

In recent years the labour shortage in the elder care has been increasing. The labour shortage is expected to grow because of the increase in care-requiring elderly and the resignation of the nursing staff. The demand for elder care workers makes it necessary to recruit and retain social and health care workers. A relatively large proportion of the newly qualified social and health care workers resign from their jobs and the cause for the resignations have not previously been examined. Social and health care workers are exposed to occupational hazards. This creates a need for scientifically based knowledge of how the newly educated perceive the psychological and physical work environment during the first few years of their employment. Furthermore it is necessary to examine how the work environment may affect the health. The aim of this study is to examine which factors affect the employment of the newly educated and changes in the health of the social and health care worker during the first years of their employment. The study is a longitudinal cohort study and the population of the study is defined as all social and health care workers who completed their training in 2004. A questionnaire survey was conducted in 2004 and follow up studies was carried out in 2005 and 2006. This material is based on the second follow-up study. The study includes information on the respondents'' motivation for studying, their health, lifestyle, social networks, personal resources, bullying, physical violence and sickness absence. The project is a part of a program on social and health care workers by the National Research Centre for Working Environment.