Abstract
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.
Highlights
I see a positive future for myself! I know I have the brain and perseverance to hold a challenging position that mentally demands a lot from me
This study investigated whether reading a positive illness narrative about working with a chronic illness related to more sustainable employability of patients with the same condition, and whether this process was mediated by positive emotions and awareness of Possible Future Work Self (PFWS), and moderated by identification with the main character
This would be in accordance with the shifting perspectives model of chronic illness [50], whereby a positive story could make people switch from an illness perspective to a wellness perspective, whereby he or she focuses on other important life goals, including working life
Summary
I see a positive future for myself! I know I have the brain and perseverance to hold a challenging position that mentally demands a lot from me. I see a positive future for myself! I know I have the brain and perseverance to hold a challenging position that mentally demands a lot from me. I am limited by my body to work parttime, but I find it nice to use that extra day off to do something fun . .) I will never stop learning in my career. I took a photo of this as a memory for myself for when I am not doing so well:). Illness narratives and chronic patients’ sustainable employability from the Vrije Universiteit Institutional Data Access via data manager Veerle Eggens Nl) or Inge Brokerhof (corresponding author) for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data Illness narratives and chronic patients’ sustainable employability from the Vrije Universiteit Institutional Data Access via data manager Veerle Eggens (v.r.c.eggens@vu. nl) or Inge Brokerhof (corresponding author) for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data
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