Is cancer survivorship associated with reduced work engagement? A NOCWO Study

This study explores work engagement in employed tumor-free cancer survivors (CSs) compared to matched controls from the general population (NORM). The sample consisted of 446 CSs tumor-free after primary treatment [226 females with breast cancer and 220 males (166 testicular cancer and 54 prostate cancer)] diagnosed 2-6 years prior to the study. All had returned to work and had favourable prognosis. NORM sample consisted of 588 employed controls (319 females, 269 males). All CSs and NORM filled in a mailed questionnaire covering demography, morbidity, and work-related issues including work engagement which was self-rated by the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES). No differences in work engagement were observed between the CSs and NORM measured by the UWES total scale score or by the Dedication and Absorption domain scores. The Vigor domains score was statistically lower among CSs (p∈=∈.03), but the effect size was only 0.19. The CSs reported significantly poorer work ability, poorer health status, greater numbers of disease symptoms, more anxiety, and reduced physical quality of life, and scored significantly higher on both neuroticism and extraversion. In spite of poorer health CSs who had returned to work after their treatment for breast, prostate, and testicular cancer showed similar work engagement as individuals without cancer. In such CSs employers have no reason to expect reduced work engagement. Future research should preferably have a prospective and comparative design. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.