Documents Kompier, Michiel A. J. 18 results

"Objective
This study aimed to systematically review the effectiveness of organizational-level interventions in improving the psychosocial work environment and workers' health and retention.
Methods
We conducted an overview of systematic reviews on organizational-level interventions published between 2000 and 2020. We systematically searched academic databases, screened reference lists, and contacted experts, yielding 27 736 records. Of the 76 eligible reviews, 24 of weak quality were excluded, yielding 52 reviews of moderate (N=32) or strong (N=20) quality, covering 957 primary studies. We assessed quality of evidence based on quality of review, consistency of results, and proportion of controlled studies.
Results
Of the 52 reviews, 30 studied a specific intervention approach and 22 specific outcomes. Regarding intervention approaches, we found strong quality of evidence for interventions focusing on “changes in working time arrangements” and moderate quality of evidence for “influence on work tasks or work organization”, “health care approach changes”, and “improvements of the psychosocial work environment”. Regarding outcomes, we found strong quality of evidence for interventions about “burnout” and moderate quality evidence for “various health and wellbeing outcomes”. For all other types of interventions, quality of evidence was either low or inconclusive, including interventions on retention.
Conclusions
This overview of reviews identified strong or moderate quality of evidence for the effectiveness of organizational-level interventions for four specific intervention approaches and two health outcomes. This suggests that the work environment and the health of employees can be improved by certain organizational-level interventions. We need more research, especially about implementation and context, to improve the evidence."

"OBJECTIVES: Many employees with burnout report cognitive difficulties. However, the relation between burnout and cognitive functioning has hardly been empirically validated. Moreover, it is unknown whether the putative cognitive deficits in burnout are temporary or permanent. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to answer two related questions: (i) Is burnout associated with self-reported cognitive difficulties and with deficits in a specific and well-defined set of executive functions? (ii) Do these putative self-reported cognitive difficulties and deficits in executive functioning in burnout diminish after a 10-week period of cognitive behavioral therapy?METHODS: Sixteen employees with burnout were compared with sixteen matched healthy employees on self-reported cognitive difficulties and tests measuring the basic executive functions, namely, updating, inhibition, and switching, on two test occasions. The interval between the test occasions was ten weeks, during which the burnout individuals received cognitive behavioral therapy.RESULTS: On the first test occasion, and relative to healthy individuals, individuals with burnout reported more cognitive difficulties and showed deficits in the "updating" function. No group differences were found regarding the "inhibition" and "switching" functions, although individuals with burnout generally responded slower than healthy individuals on the latter test. Even though after the ten-week treatment period individuals with burnout revealed positive changes regarding burnout symptoms, general health, and self-reported cognitive difficulties, no evidence was found for improved cognitive test performance.CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that either (i) burnout leads to permanent cognitive deficits, (ii) subjective burnout complaints reduce faster than deficits in cognitive test performance, or (iii) cognitive deficits are a cause rather than a consequence of burnout."

"Objectives The number of longitudinal studies reporting evidence for reversed effects of strain on work is growing, but evidence regarding the mechanisms underlying such effects is scarce. In this study, earlier longitudinal findings were reviewed, and the following four mechanisms for reversed effects were proposed that reflect within-person or environmental changes: (i) the rosy perception mechanism, (ii) the gloomy perception mechanism, (iii) the upward selection mechanism, and (iv) the drift mechanism.Methods These mechanisms were tested using structural equation modeling and longitudinal data from a Dutch four-phase study (N=1588 participants).Results The results revealed that work characteristics and mental health influenced each other reciprocally and longitudinally. The reversed effects were examined in more detail, and it was found that these could be accounted for by both within-person and environmental change mechanisms. The rosy perception mechanism was found to explain the positive effects from health on job demands; the upward selection mechanism explained the positive (environmental) effects from health on job control; the gloomy perception mechanism explained the reversed (evaluation) effects from health on supervisory social support. No support was found for the drift mechanism.Conclusions Mechanisms that may explain reversed causation are yet poorly understood. The main contribution of the present study lies in the fact that it proposes (i) a conceptual framework with which to analyze the effects of health on work characteristics and (ii) methods for testing these mechanisms. The study revealed that there is good reason to pursue research on reversed causality."

"The objective of this review is to establish whether the epidemiologic literature presents evidence of an association between psychosocial work factors and musculoskeletal disease. In a hypothetical model it is suggested that individual characteristics and stress symptoms can modify this relationship. The reviewed studies do not present conclusive evidence due to high correlations between psychosocial factors and physical load and to difficulties in measuring dependent and independent variables. Nevertheless, it is concluded that monotonous work, high perceived work load, and time pressure are related to musculoskeletal symptoms. The data also suggest that low control on the job and lack of social support by colleagues are positively associated with musculoskeletal disease. Perceived stress may be an intermediary in this process. In addition, stress symptoms are often associated with musculoskeletal disease, and some studies indicate that stress symptoms contribute to the development of this disease."

"STUDY AIM:
We hypothesise that due to a lower quality of working life and higher job insecurity, the health and work-related attitudes of temporary workers may be less positive compared to permanent workers. Therefore, we aimed to (1) examine differences between contract groups (i.e. permanent contract, temporary contract with prospect of permanent work, fixed-term contract, temporary agency contract and on-call contract) in the quality of working life, job insecurity, health and work-related attitudes and (2) investigate whether these latter contract group differences in health and work-related attitudes can be explained by differences in the quality of working life and/or job insecurity.

METHODS:
Data were collected from the Netherlands Working Conditions Survey 2008 (N = 21,639), and Hypotheses were tested using analysis of variance and cross-table analysis.

RESULTS:
Temporary work was associated with fewer task demands and lower autonomy and was more often passive or high-strain work, while permanent work was more often active work. Except for on-call work, temporary work was more insecure and associated with worse health and work-related attitude scores than permanent work. Finally, the quality of working life and job insecurity partly accounted for most contract differences in work-related attitudes but not in health.

CONCLUSIONS:
Especially agency workers have a lower health status and worse work-related attitudes. Job redesign measures regarding their quality of working life and job insecurity are recommended."

"This paper aims at identifying major changes in and around work organizations, their effects upon job characteristics and the health and well-being of today's employees, and related research challenges. Increased internationalization and competition, increased utilization of information and communication technology, the changing workforce configuration, and flexibility and new organizational practices are considered. As work has changed from physical to mental in nature, job characteristics have changed significantly. Meanwhile work and family life have blended. New systems of work organization have become more prevalent, but they do not represent a radical change across the whole economy. New practices may have an adverse impact upon job characteristics, but their effects depend on their design, implementation, and management. Research recommendations include improved monitoring of changes in work organization and studies into their health and safety consequences, intervention studies, studies into the motivating potential of modern work practices, studies of marginalized workers and workers in less developed countries, and “mechanism studies”."