Expectations and desires of palliative health care personnel concerning their future work culture

Introduction: Exploring the work culture of health care personnel is important in order to understand the challenges they face and the issues they experience. Believing in and shaping their futures indicates a working culture influenced by promoting factors. The aims of this study were to explore how health care workers at a Palliative Medicine Unit perceive their future work culture would be and whether they perceive that their expectations and desires will be fulfilled. Design: A correlational study. Methods: Health care personnel, physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, and others (N = 26) at a PMU in Norway completed a questionnaire according to the two perspectives, expectations (future) and desire (wish). The findings in these two perspectives were compared. The method seeks to explore what aspects dominate the particular work culture and identifying challenges, limitations, and opportunities. The findings were also compared with a reference group of 347 ratings of well-functioning Norwegian organizations, named the “Norwegian Norm”. Results: The findings for the wish perspective showed significant (p<0.05; p<0.01) higher rates for nurturing and synergy dimensions and significant lower rates (p>0.05; p>0.05) for opposition and control dimensions than the findings for the future perspective. Conclusions: It appears that the health care personnel wish for changes that they don’t believe they will achieve. The changes the respondents wish for are fewer negative work culture qualities, such as assertiveness and resignation, and more positive work culture qualities, such as engagement and empathy. Changes must be made to give the health care personnel improved working conditions and empowerment in order to change their situations to reflect what they wish for. The present findings can give an indication as to the direction that research ought to follow in subsequent studies.