Can the job content questionnaire be used to assess structural and organizational properties of the work environment?

Ensuring Organization-Intervention Fit for a Participatory Organizational Intervention to Improve Food Service Workers' Health and Wellbeing: Workplace Organizational Health Study

OBJECTIVE

Food-service workers' health and wellbeing is impacted by their jobs and work environments. Formative research methods were used to explore working conditions impacting workers' health to inform intervention planning and implementation and to enhance the intervention's "fit" to the organization.

METHODS

Four qualitative methods (worker focus groups; manager interviews; worksite observations; multi-stakeholder workshop) explored in-depth and then prioritized working conditions impacting workers' health as targets for an intervention.

RESULTS

Prioritized working conditions included: ergonomics; work intensity; career development; and job enrichment. Data revealed necessary intervention mechanisms to enhance intervention implementation: worker and management communication infrastructure; employee participation in intervention planning and implementation; tailored worksite strategies; and ensuring leadership commitment.

CONCLUSIONS

These targeted, comprehensive methods move away from a typical focus on generic working conditions, for example, job demands and physical work environment, to explore those conditions unique to an organization. Thereby, enhancing "intervention-fit" at multiple levels within the company context.

Physical and psychosocial work factors as explanations for social inequalities in self-rated health

OBJECTIVE

We investigated the contribution of physical and psychosocial work factors to social inequalities in self-rated health (SRH) in a sample of Danish 40 and 50 years old occupationally active women and men.

METHODS

In this longitudinal study, the study population consisted of 3338 Danish women and men. Data were collected by postal questionnaires in 2000 (baseline) and 2006 (follow-up). The independent variable, socioeconomic position (SEP), was assessed by the highest achieved educational level at baseline. We conducted gender-stratified parallel multiple mediation analyses. In the mediation analyses, SEP was categorised as SEP I, II, III, VI and V among men. Among women, SEP was dichotomised into SEP I-IV and V. The outcome, SRH, was assessed at baseline and follow-up. A wide range of physical and psychosocial work factors were included as potential mediators.

RESULTS

We found a social gradient in SRH across all levels of SEP among men. Among women, we only found a poorer SRH among those with the lowest SEP. Mediation analyses showed that work factors together accounted for 56% of the social inequalities in SRH among men and 44% among women. In both genders, ergonomic exposures and job insecurity seemed to play the major role for social inequalities in SRH. For women only, we also found noise to contribute to the social inequalities in SRH.

CONCLUSION

Physical and psychosocial work factors partially explained social inequalities in SRH among both genders. Improvement of the working environment can potentially contribute to the reduction of social inequalities in health.

The Effect of Psychosocial Work Factors on Headache: Results From the PRISME Cohort Study

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the cross-sectional and longitudinal association between psychosocial work factors, assessed as work-unit averages, and headache. For comparison, we also applied individual exposure measures.

METHODS

We used questionnaire-data on headache and psychosocial work factors (PWF). In total, 2247 employees were included in the cross-sectional analyses and 553 in the longitudinal analyses using work-unit averages. The corresponding numbers for the analyses using individual exposure measures were 4261 and 942 employees.

RESULTS

Low skill discretion and low decision authority were most consistently associated with higher odds of headache across all analyses. Role conflicts, bullying, and effort-reward imbalance were associated with headache in some analyses. All PWF were associated with headache in cross-sectional analyses with individual exposure measures.

CONCLUSION

This study partly supports the hypothesis of an effect of PWF, as a source of psychological stress, on the risk of headache.

Work-related neck and upper limb disorders - quantitative exposure-response relationships adjusted for personal characteristics and psychosocial conditions

BACKGROUND

We have previously reported quantitative exposure-response relationships between physical exposures recorded by technical methods, and complaints and diagnoses in the neck/shoulders, and the elbows/hands, based on group data. In the present study the number of workers was doubled, and information on individual factors, and psychosocial working conditions was used. Relationships between various kinds of exposure and response have been analysed in this larger and more detailed sample.

METHODS

The prevalence of complaints (Nordic Questionnaire) and diagnoses (clinical examination) were recorded in a number of occupational groups within which the participants had similar work tasks, 34 groups of female employees (N = 4733 women) and 17 groups of male employees (N = 1107 men). Age and other individual characteristics were recorded, as well as psychosocial work environment factors (job-content questionnaire) for most participants. Postures and velocities (inclinometry) of the head (N = 505) and right upper arm (N = 510), right wrist postures and velocities (electrogoniometry; N = 685), and muscular activity (electromyography; EMG) in the right trapezius muscle (N = 647) and forearm extensors (N = 396) were recorded in representative sub-groups. Exposure-response relationships between physical exposure and musculoskeletal disorders, adjusted for individual factors with Poisson regression were then calculated. The effect of introducing psychosocial conditions into the models was also assessed.

RESULTS

Associations were found between head velocity, trapezius activity, upper arm velocity, forearm extensor activity and wrist posture and velocity, and most neck/shoulder and elbow/hand complaints and diagnoses. Adjustment for age, other individual characteristics and psychosocial work conditions had only a limited effect on these associations. For example, the attributable fraction for tension neck syndrome among female workers with the highest quintile of trapezius activity was 58%, for carpal tunnel syndrome versus wrist velocity it was 92% in men in the highest exposure quintile.

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the findings, we propose threshold limit values for upper arm and wrist velocity.

Relationship Between Changes in Workplace Bullying Status and the Reporting of Personality Characteristics

OBJECTIVE

To examine whether a shift in work-related bullying status, from being non-bullied to being bullied or vice versa, was associated with changes in reporting of personality characteristics.

METHODS

Data on bullying and personality (neuroticism, extraversion, and sense of coherence) were collected in three waves approximately 2 years apart (N = 4947). Using a within-subjects design, personality change scores that followed altered bullying status were evaluated with one-sample t tests. Sensitivity analyses targeted depressive symptoms.

RESULTS

Shifts from non-bullied to frequently bullied were associated with increased neuroticism or decreased sense of coherence manageability scores. Shifts from bullied to non-bullied were associated with decreasing neuroticism and increasing extraversion scores, or increasing sense of coherence meaningfulness and comprehensibility scores. Excluding depressive cases had minor effects.

CONCLUSIONS

Bullying seems to some extent to affect personality scale scores, which thus seem sensitive to environmental and social circumstances.

Exposure-response relationships for work-related neck and shoulder musculoskeletal disorders--Analyses of pooled uniform data sets

There is a lack of quantitative data regarding exposure-response relationships between occupational risk factors and musculoskeletal disorders in the neck and shoulders. We explored such relationships in pooled data from a series of our cross-sectional studies. We recorded the prevalence of complaints/discomfort (Nordic Questionnaire) and diagnoses (physical examination) in 33 groups (24 female and 9 male) within which the workers had similar work tasks (3141 workers, of which 817 were males). In representative sub-groups, we recorded postures and velocities of the head (N = 299) and right upper arm (inclinometry; N = 306), right wrist postures and velocities (electrogoniometry; N = 499), and muscular activity (electromyography) in the right trapezius muscle (N = 431) and forearm extensors (N = 206). We also assessed the psychosocial work environment (Job Content Questionnaire). Uni- and multivariate linear meta-regression analysis revealed several statistically significant group-wise associations. Neck disorders were associated with head inclination, upper arm elevation, muscle activity of the trapezius and forearm extensors and wrist posture and angular velocity. Right-side shoulder disorders were associated with head and upper arm velocity, activity in the trapezius and forearm extensor muscles and wrist posture and angular velocity. The psychosocial work environment (low job control, job strain and isostrain) was also associated with disorders. Women exhibited a higher prevalence of neck and shoulder complaints and tension neck syndrome than men, when adjusting for postures, velocities, muscular activity or psychosocial exposure. In conclusion, the analyses established quantitative exposure-response relationships between neck and shoulder disorders and objective measures of the physical workload on the arm. Such information can be used for risk assessment in different occupations/work tasks, to establish quantitative exposure limits, and for the evaluation of preventive measures.

Self-reported psychological demands, skill discretion and decision authority at work: A twin study

Objectives: To examine the contribution of genetic factors to self-reported psychological demands (PD), skill discretion (SD) and decision authority (DA) and the possible importance of such influence on the association between these work variables and depressive symptoms. Methods: 11,543 participants aged 27–54 in the Swedish Twin Registry participated in a web survey. First of all, in multiple regressions, phenotypic associations between each one of the three work environment variables and depressive symptoms were analysed. Secondly, by means of classical twin analysis, the genetic contribution to PD, SD and DA was assessed. After this, cross-twin cross-trait correlations were computed between PD, SD and DA, on the one hand, and depressive symptom score, on the other hand. Results: The genetic contribution to self-reported PD, DS and DA ranged from 18% for decision authority to 30% for skill discretion. Cross-twin cross-trait correlations were very weak ( r values < .1) and non-significant for dizygotic twins, and we lacked power to analyse the genetic architecture of the phenotypic associations using bivariate twin modelling. However, substantial genetic contribution to these associations seems unlikely. Conclusions: Genetic contributions to the self-reported work environment scores were 18–30%.

Psychosocial stress at work and cardiovascular diseases: an overview of systematic reviews

Purpose

Based on information reported in systematic reviews (SRevs), this study aimed to find out whether psychosocial stress at work leads to cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality.

Methods

A systematic search in PubMed and EMBASE (until 2014) used a string based on PICOS components. A manual search was followed. Applying the predefined criteria, two reviewers independently screened the titles, abstracts, selected full texts, and validated their quality. Discrepancies were resolved by discussion between reviewers. Studies of low quality were excluded. Contents of enrolled SRevs were extracted by one reviewer; a second reviewer evaluated their accurateness.

Results

The search resulted in 462 records. Six SRevs based on 81 studies (total population: ~1,468,670) fulfilled the inclusion criteria, four of “very good” (++) and two of “good” (+) quality. Excluded records were filed, and reasons for exclusion were documented in all cases. Different stress models were used to measure the work-related stress; the “demand-control model” was most commonly used. The two enrolled meta-analysis confirmed a modest (1.32, 95 % CI 1.09–1.59; Virtanen et al. 2013) to moderate evidence (1.45, 95 % CI 1.15–1.84; Kivimäki et al. 2006), predominantly among men, for the association between psychosocial stress at work and CV outcomes. Due to lacking information, it was not possible to give evidence on the dose–response relationship.

Conclusions

Same to a SRev, an overview of SRev is used to summarize literature and identify areas in which research is needed. This overview can be used to: (a) Disseminate an up-to-date information on work-related stress as a risk factors for CV morbidity and mortality to government, health care providers, workers, and other stakeholders; (b) Encourage governments to better regulate the working conditions and consider work-related psychosocial stress as a hazardous factor that leads to CV diseases or mortality; and (c) Analyze gaps in the literature and provide a summary of research needs.

Short-term test-retest reliability of the Job Content Questionnaire and Effort-Reward Imbalance Questionnaire items and scales among professional firefighters

Relatively little is known about the short-term test-retest reliability of the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) and Effort-Reward Imbalance Questionnaire (ERIQ). Seventeen JCQ and six ERIQ items were qualitatively reviewed by 19 firefighters in focus groups. The items were then administered twice to 81 firefighters with a time interval of 1-8 weeks. The short-term reliability of the JCQ and ERIQ items and scales with the four-point Likert item responses was at least fair or moderate with several complementary statistical methods. It improved substantially when the four-point responses were simplified into the two ('agree' or 'disagree') responses. The JCQ psychological demands and the ERIQ effort scales were among the least reliable scales and their items were most frequently indicated by the firefighters to be clarified. The responses of professional firefighters to the JCQ and ERIQ items and scales were stable during an 8-week period, particularly when dichotomous item responses were used.