Utility of an online well-being assessment in targeting employee well-being programmes: a cross-sectional survey study in Finland

Abstract

ObjectivesOccupational health challenges are changing, emphasising the need for a more comprehensive approach. This study examines how a subjective well-being assessment can be used to identify target groups for work well-being interventions and brings insight into how survey-based well-being evaluations are linked to clinical health indicators (ie, anthropometric measurements and blood tests).DesignA cross-sectional survey study using results from the Virta1 randomised controlled trial and a third-party well-being questionnaire database.Setting and participantsOnline well-being survey data from 2990 respondents was used to identify target groups for work well-being interventions and clinical health indicator data from 713 respondents was used to examine how subjective evaluations are linked to physical health.ResultsWe identified five groups of employees with different well-being challenges and presenteeism levels:Good well-being,Hard on oneself,Lifestyle challenges,Recovery challenges andMultiple challenges. The subjective evaluations correlated with clinical health indicators, showing that the well-being groups differed significantly in their average clinical health profiles. Especially people in theMultiple challengesgroup had multiple physical health challenges, while people in theGood well-beingandHard on oneselfgroups did not.ConclusionsOur results show that a subjective well-being assessment can identify different groups with distinct characteristics and health risks and that subjective evaluations of well-being correlate strongly with physical health. Online well-being assessment offers potentially a cost-effective way for occupational health providers to screen large populations to target physical health examinations to groups that need them the most and simultaneously get a better understanding of their well-being needs.