Importance: Elucidation of the relationship between belief conflict and occupational dysfunction in occupational health is needed. Knowledge of this relationship is important to the development of preventive occupational therapy.
Objective: To examine the relationship between belief conflict and occupational dysfunction.
Design: Cross-sectional study. Participants were recruited via nonrandom sampling, and data were analyzed with Bayesian modeling.
Setting: Health care institutions in Japan.
Participants: Participants were 890 health care workers.
Outcomes and measures: Data were collected by means of the Participant Profile, the Assessment of Belief Conflict in Relationship-14 (ABCR-14), and the Classification and Assessment of Occupational Dysfunction.
Results: Belief conflict and occupational dysfunction showed moderate to strong positive correlations. The cutoff value for the ABCR-14 was estimated to be 58 points. The odds ratio indicated that groups with high belief conflict were very likely to experience occupational dysfunction.
Conclusions and relevance: These findings show that belief conflict and occupational dysfunction are more than moderately associated. Longitudinal studies are needed to prove the causal relationship between belief conflict and occupational dysfunction.
What this article adds: Considering that those falling into the high-belief-conflict group are likely to experience occupational dysfunction, it is necessary to focus efforts not only on teamwork but also on the improvement of health. Preventive occupational therapy needs to assume a leading role in improving the occupational health of health care workers who experience belief conflict and occupational dysfunction.
Copyright © 2019 by the American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc.