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Background: The proportion of elderly receiving assistance from the home care has increased drastically the last couple of years. This has put the home care system in many municipalities under a lot of stress. High workload has in previous studies found to be associated with various negative health outcomes. But there is a lack of studies on how the high workload affects the health workers in the home care. The objective of this study is to examine and describe the health burden of perceived workload among health workers in the home care and to test the association between psychosocial factors and health-related quality of life.

Method: A cross-sectional study, 1162 health workers participated in the study with a response rate around 58%. The psychosocial factors workload, control and social support were measured by QPSnordic and health related quality of life were measured by EQ-5D. Multiple logistic regression was used to measure the association between high workload and health related quality of life and stratified analysis was used to test the buffer hypothesis of the demand-control-support model.

Results: There was a significant risk for poorer HRQoL when exposed to high workload in three of the four included dimensions. Adjusted odds ratio for high workload was for mobility 1.78 (CI: 0.95 -3.33), usual activities 2.67 (CI: 1.44 – 4.93), pain and discomfort 1.53 (CI 1.04 – 2.26) and anxiety and depression 3.11 (CI: 2.13 – 4.55). Control and social support moderated the effect of high workload, but the result was only significant for anxiety and depression.

Conclusions: A high workload was associated with a higher risk for problems with anxiety and depression, pain and discomfort and usual activities. High control and social support at work were found to be moderating the association and were related to a reduced risk for anxiety and depression. Old age among health workers were found to reduce the overall risk for anxiety and depression, but age was also associated with an increased risk for anxiety and depression related to high workload.