Occupational health services in Finland—do they work well? Opinions of the managers

Abstract

The employers are obligated by law to organize the occupational health services (OHS) for their employees in Finland. The coverage of OHS is high: 76% of the employed labour force and 85% of the salaried employees and wage-earners are covered by OHS. High coverage tells nothing about satisfaction of employers: are they satisfied with the functions of OHS? The objective of the study was to chart the opinions of the managers related to their experiences of collaboration with OHS. The data of the study were collected by a computer-assisted telephone interview in 2004 by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. The survey was based on a stratified random sample from the registers of Statistics Finland. The sample of workplaces represents the entire working population. The manager, the representative of the employees and the occupational health nurse were interviewed at the workplace. The original sample in 2004 consisted of 1000 workplaces, of which 812 managers (response rate 81%), 752 employees (response rate 93%) and 711 OHS personnel (response rate 88%) participated (almost 2300 persons). According to this study, the managers are quite satisfied with the functions of their OHS provider. OHS have to improve the systems for feedback, proposals for improvements and their knowledge of client workplaces' atmosphere.