Documents Virtanen, Marianna 14 results

This study explored the health and sickness absences of contingent employees. Analyses of self-reported health and recorded spells of sickness absence were based on a cohort of 5650 employees (674 men, 4976 women) in 10 Finnish hospitals.After adjustment for demographic and work-related characteristics, contingent employees had a better self-rated health status [odds ratio 0.76, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.62-0.94 of poor or average health status]. There were no differences in the prevalence of diagnosed chronic diseases and minor psychiatric morbidity between the groups. After adjustment for self-rated health and confounding, female, but not male, contingent employees had a lower rate of self-certified (1-3 days) sickness absences than permanent employees (rate ratio 0.90, 95% CI 0.85-0.95). Contingent employees, irrespective of gender, had a 0.77 (95% CI 0.71-0.84) times lower rate of medically certified (>3 days) sickness absence than permanent employees. Poor self-rated health status, reported diagnosed chronic diseases, and minor psychiatric morbidity were associated with medically certified absences to a less extent among contingent employees than among permanent employees.These findings suggest better self-rated health and a lower sickness absence rate for contingent employees than for permanent employees. The difference in sickness absence between the groups seems not only to be associated with actual differences in health, but also with different thresholds of taking sick leave or working while ill.

"Moves towards a more flexible labor market have focused research attention on the health effects of downsizing, temporary employment, and job insecurity. Most published research documents adverse effects on health, although null findings and direct associations have been observed. There is evidence that major downsizing is associated with poor mental health, medically certified sickness absence, and poor physical health, including cardiovascular disease mortality, among the survivors of downsizing. Recent research suggests that repeated exposure to personnel expansion also predicts sickness absence and hospitalization. There is strong evidence that job insecurity adversely affects psychological health and also evidence of increases in poor self-reported physical health, workplace injuries and accidents, sickness absence, and health service use. However, evidence of a link with disease and premature death remains limited. While temporary workers are initially selected for good health, they generally have poorer mental and physical health, including increased premature mortality, in the long term. "

"Objectives
Work-related stress has been linked to increased risk of disability pensioning, but the association between perceived justice of managerial behavior and decision-making processes at the workplace (ie, organizational justice) and risk of disability pensioning remains unknown. We examined the associations of organizational justice and its relational and procedural components with all-cause and diagnosis-specific disability pensions with repeated measures of justice.
Methods
Data from 24 895 employees responding to repeated surveys on organizational justice in 2000–2002 and 2004 were linked to the records of a national register for disability pensions from 2005–2011. Associations of long-term organizational justice (average score from two surveys) with disability pensions were studied with Cox proportional hazard regression adjusted for demographics, socioeconomic status, baseline health and health risk behavior, stratified by sex.
Results
During a mean follow-up of 6.4 years, 1658 (7%) employees were granted disability pension (282 due to depression; 816 due to musculoskeletal diseases). Higher organizational justice was associated with a lower risk of disability pensioning [hazard ratio (HR) per one-unit increase in 5-point justice scale 0.87 (95% CI 0.81–0.94)]. For disability pension due to depression and musculoskeletal diseases, the corresponding HR were 0.77 (95% CI 0.65–0.91) and 0.87 (95% CI 0.79–0.97), respectively. Adjustment for job strain and effort–reward imbalance attenuated the HR by 20–80%.
Conclusions
Supervisors` fair treatment of employees and fair decision-making in the organizations are associated with a decreased risk of disability pensioning from all-causes, depression and musculoskeletal diseases. These associations may be attributable to a wider range of favorable work characteristics."

"Objectives This study examined the association between employment status and specific DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, IVth edition) depressive, anxiety and alcohol use disorders and the association between employment status and service use for these disorders.Methods As part of the representative population-based “Health 2000 Study” of Finns aged 30 years or over, 3440 employed, 429 unemployed, and 820 economically inactive persons of working age (30–64 years) participated in a comprehensive health examination, including the standardized Composite International Diagnostic Interview.Results The risk of mental disorders was generally higher among the unemployed and the economically inactive than among the employed. The respective odds ratios were 1.79 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.26–2.54] and 1.54 (95% CI 1.06–2.25) for depressive disorders, 2.68 (95% CI 1.85–3.89) and 2.53 (95% CI 1.76–3.65) for anxiety disorders, and 2.58 (95% CI 1.82–3.65) and 1.43 (95% CI 0.91–2.22) for alcohol use disorders. Similar results were obtained for most of the specific categories of these disorders. Among the persons with anxiety disorders, the odds for treatment contact were 2.35 (95% CI 1.06–5.23) times higher for the unemployed than for the employed after control for disorder severity. For those with an alcohol use disorder, the corresponding odds ratio was 3.51 (95% CI 1.23–9.98).Conclusions Common mental disorders are less prevalent among the employed than among unemployed and economically inactive people. Among those with anxiety or alcohol use disorders, service use is less common among the employed than among the unemployed. This difference is not explained by the severity of the clinical state. "

"Objectives
Bi-directional associations between perceived effort‒reward imbalance (ERI) at work and neck-shoulder pain have been reported. There is also evidence of associations between ERI and depressive symptoms, and between depressive symptoms and pain while the links between ERI, depressive symptoms and pain have not been tested. We aimed to assess whether depressive symptoms mediate the association between ERI and neck-shoulder pain, as well as the association between neck-shoulder pain and ERI.
Methods
We used prospective data from three consecutive surveys of the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH) study. ERI was assessed with a short version of the ERI questionnaire, and pain was defined as having had neck-shoulder pain that affected daily life during the past three months. Depressive symptoms were assessed with a continuous scale based on six-items of the (Hopkins) Symptom Checklist. Counterfactual mediation analyses were applied using exposure measures from 2010/2012 (T1), depressive symptoms from 2012/2014 (T2), and outcomes from 2014/2016 (T3), and including only those free of outcome at T1 and T2 (N=2876‒3239).
Results
ERI was associated with a higher risk of neck-shoulder pain [risk ratio (RR) for total effect 1.22, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.00–1.48] and 41% of this total effect was mediated through depressive symptoms. Corresponding RR for association between neck-shoulder pain and ERI was 1.34 (95% CI 1.09–1.64), but the mediating role of depressive symptoms was less consistent.
Conclusions
Depressive symptoms appear to be an intermediate factor in the relationship between ERI and neck-shoulder pain."

"The COVID-19 pandemic led to permanent and temporary job losses but the mental health consequences of different types of employment transitions are not well-understood. In particular, knowledge is scarce concerning furloughs, which was a common job protection strategy in many high- and upper middle-income countries during this crisis. This study focuses on how different types of job instability and job loss during the pandemic influences depression and anxiety in the context of Sweden.

A subset of participants from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health were contacted in February 2021 and again in February 2022. A total of 1558 individuals participated in either or both waves and worked before the pandemic. We examined whether i) workplace downsizing, ii) furlough, or iii) unemployment/job loss were associated with depression and anxiety over this one-year period during the pandemic. Logistic regression models with cluster-robust standard errors were estimated, adjusting for sociodemographic factors and prior mental health problems. Effect modification by sex and prior mental health problems was also examined.

In comparison to stable employment, being furloughed was unrelated to mental health, while experiencing workplace downsizing during the pandemic was associated with an increased risk of anxiety (adjusted Odds Ratio (OR) = 2.09, 95% Confidence interval (CI) = 1.08–4.05). Job loss/unemployment increased the risk of depression (OR = 1.91, 95% CI = 1.02–3.57) compared to being stably employed, but the risk estimate crossed unity when considering prior mental health status. No effect modification by sex or by prior mental health problems was found.

This study found that while job loss and downsizing during the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with depression and anxiety, respectively, being furloughed was not. These findings thus suggest that job retention schemes in the form of short-time work allowances, as implemented in Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic, may prevent mental health problems among employees during economic crises."

"Background Little is known about the role that work-related factors play in the decline of cognitive function. This study examined the association between perceived organisational justice and cognitive function among middle-aged men and women. Methods Perceived organisational justice was measured at phases 1 (1985–8) and 2 (1989–90) of the Whitehall II study when the participants were 35–55?years old. Assessment of cognitive function at the screening clinic at phases 5 (1997–9) and 7 (2003–4) included the following tests in the screening clinic: memory, inductive reasoning (Alice Heim 4), vocabulary (Mill Hill), and verbal fluency (phonemic and semantic). Mean exposure to lower organisational justice at phases 1 and 2 in relation to cognitive function at phases 5 and 7 were analysed using linear regression analyses. The final sample included 4531 men and women. Results Lower mean levels of justice at phases 1 and 2 were associated with worse cognitive function in terms of memory, inductive reasoning, vocabulary and verbal fluency at both phases 5 and 7. These associations were independent of covariates, such as age, occupational grade, behavioural risks, depression, hypertension and job strain. Conclusions This study suggests an association between perceived organisational justice and cognitive function. Further studies are needed to examine whether interventions designed to improve organisational justice would affect employees' cognition function favourably."

"We studied health-related selection and consequences of an organizational downsizing among 886 municipal employees. Measurements of health indicators were conducted before any rumor of the downsizing and immediately after the downsizing 3 years later. Results of pre-downsizing health showed that those who did not find employment after the staff reductions were older employees with high preexisting morbidity. Those getting a new job elsewhere were younger and had better health already before the downsizing than the stayers. After the downsizing, deterioration of health was most likely in the stayers working in groups of major staff reductions and among the nonemployed leavers. In the reemployed leavers, the risk of increased health problems was lower than in others including employees working in no or minor downsizing groups."

"The objective was to examine whether downsizing, the reduction of personnel in organisations, is a predictor of increased sickness absence and mortality among employees.
Major downsizing was associated with an increase in sickness absence (P for trend <0.001) in permanent employees but not in temporary employees. The extent of downsizing was also associated with cardiovascular deaths (P for trend <0.01) but not with deaths from other causes. Cardiovascular mortality was 2.0 (95% confidence interval 1.0 to 3.9) times higher after major downsizing than after no downsizing. Splitting the follow up period into two halves showed a 5.1 (1.4 to 19.3) times increase in cardiovascular mortality for major downsizing during the first four years after downsizing. The corresponding hazard ratio was 1.4 (0.6 to 3.1) during the second half of follow up.
Organisational downsizing may increase sickness absence and the risk of death from cardiovascular disease in employees who keep their jobs."

"Increasing levels of non-permanent employment have raised concern about quality of working life in the public sector. This Finnish study examines whether the public sector can be characterized as a ‘model employer' with regard to the working conditions and well-being of fixed-term employees. Compared to the private sector, the difference in the physical load between non-permanent and permanent employees is significantly smaller in the public sector. Comparison of psychosocial strain shows a difference in favour of non-permanent employees, particularly among women working in the public sector. The association between type of employment contract and health is similar in both sectors. The equality between permanent and nonpermanent employees gives reason to benchmark the public sector as a model, even if the present findings may be due partly to sectorspecific occupational structures."