Abstract

The number of workers with a chronic disease is steadily growing in industrialized countries.
To cope with and to give meaning to their illness, patients construct illness narratives, which
are widely shared across patient societies, personal networks and the media. This study
investigates the influence of these shared illness narratives on patient’s working lives, by
examining the impact of reading a positive work story versus negative work story on
patients’ sustainable employability. We expected that this relationship would be mediated
by positive emotions and the extent to which the story enhanced awareness of desires
future selves, and moderated by identification with story character. An online field experiment
with 166 people with Inflammatory Bowel Disease in The Netherlands showed that
while reading a positive story of a patient with the same condition significantly increased
positive emotions, these emotions did not influence sustainable employability. However,
reading a positive story was related to higher sustainable employability when patients
became more aware of their desired possible future work selves. Finally, identification with
the story character moderated the impact of story type on sustainable employability. This
study showed that personal engagement with a positive work story of a fellow patient is
related to higher sustainable employability. Findings can be helpful for health professionals
to empower employees with a chronic disease.