A good social climate and high work engagement are key factors affecting patient outcomes in healthcare settings. In 2005 the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), National Center for Organization Development (NCOD), United States, initiated a program called Civility, Respect, and Engagement in the Workplace (CREW). This program aims to promote respect and civility in the workplace, facilitate and invigorate communication among workers, and enhance workers’ mental and physical health.
In Japan, the CREW program has yet to be implemented, and its feasibility and effectiveness have yet to be tested. Therefore, Dr. Sawada, a member of the CREW JAPAN TEAM, attempted to launch a pilot study to assess the feasibility of the CREW program as a potential intervention to improve the social climate and staff work engagement in a psychiatric ward of a Japanese teaching hospital.
The CREW program comprised 18 sessions installed over six months, each lasting 30 minutes. Nurses, medical doctors, and other healthcare professionals participated in this study. The research team assessed the ward’s social climate changes and individual work engagement. The social climate was evaluated using the Essen climate evaluation schema (EssenCES) and the CREW civility scale (civility). Work engagement was measured using the Utrecht work engagement scale (UWES).
“The results of this study demonstrated that the CREW program is feasible to implement in Japanese workplaces and may be used as one of the programs to improve workplace social climate,” said Project Assistant Professor Utako Sawada, the first author of the study published in Nursing Reports.