Browsing by Subject "Working conditions"

Mental health problems are a major public health concern globally. Many developed countries are facing the challenge of ageing populations and simultaneously an increase in labour market inactivity due to mental health problems among the working-age population. To be able to prolong working careers, it is important to pay attention to the work ability of young adults. As working life has become more psychosocially demanding while the burden of adverse physical working conditions has diminished, it is important to gain a better understanding of the association between working conditions and mental health functioning among younger workers in order to find ways to enhance work ability and alleviate the social and economic burden of mental health problems. The aim of this study was to examine the association between adverse working conditions and poor mental health functioning among under 40-year-old employees of the City of Helsinki. The data (n=4 315) was collected in 2017 through survey questionnaires for the Helsinki Health Study. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to analyse the association of psychosocial working conditions (job control and job demands) and physical working conditions (physical workload) with mental health functioning. Mental health functioning was measured with the SF-36 measurement and was dichotomised from the lowest quartile. Sociodemographic characteristics and health behaviours were used as covariates in the analysis. The results showed that after full adjustments, respondents with high job demands were nearly twice as likely (OR=1.9; 95% CI=1.6-2.3) and those with low job control 1.5 times as likely (OR=1.5; 95% CI=1.2-1.7) to have poor mental health functioning than others. Adjusting for covariates did not affect the OR for job control, but adjusting for adverse health behaviours decreased the OR for high job demands slightly. High physical workload had a weak association with poor mental health functioning, which slightly decreased after adjusting for adverse health behaviours and was not statistically significant in the full model (OR=0.9; 95% CI=0.8-1.1). The results of this study highlight the significance of adverse psychosocial working conditions for poor employee mental health functioning. Thus, in order to increase individual wellbeing and work productivity, work organizations could consider ways to decrease employees’ job demands and enhance employee job control. As the present study was cross-sectional, further research is needed to investigate the long-term effects of adverse working conditions on mental health functioning among younger employees.