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Long-term associations of psychosocial working conditions with depressive symptoms and work-related emotional exhaustion: comparing effects in a 5-year prospective study of 1949 workers in Germany

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Abstract

Objective

To test the hypothesis that psychosocial working conditions are more strongly associated with subsequent work-related emotional exhaustion (core component of burnout) than with depressive symptoms at follow-up.

Methods

A 5-year cohort study (2011/2012–2017), based on a random sample of persons in employment subject to payment of social contributions aged 31–60 years (Study on Mental Health at Work; S-MGA; N = 1949), included self-reported measures of organisational demands (organisational layoffs and restructuring), task-level demands (work pace and amount of work) and job resources (influence at work, possibilities for development, control over working time, role clarity), all taken from the COPSOQ, except the organisational demands that were single-item measures. Work-related emotional exhaustion and depressive symptoms were measured with the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, respectively.

Results

Cochrane Q tests revealed stronger associations between psychosocial working conditions and work-related emotional exhaustion only for the amount of work (p = 0.013) and control over working time (p = 0.027). No differences were observed for the Demands and Resources Indexes, capturing overall exposure to psychosocial working conditions. The same differences were observed in a subsample including only participants who remained at the same employer from baseline to follow-up, although more psychosocial working conditions were associated with work-related emotional exhaustion than with depressive symptoms. Supplementary analyses employing dichotomous measures of work-related emotional exhaustion and depressive symptoms confirmed these results.

Conclusions

Overall, the findings provide limited evidence supporting the hypothesis that psychosocial working conditions are more strongly associated with work-related emotional exhaustion than with depressive symptoms.

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Data availability

A scientific use file (SUF) containing both wave 1 and wave 2 of the cohort is available at the Research Data Centre of the Federal Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (https://doi.org/10.48697/smga.w1w2.suf.).

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Acknowledgements

The Study on Mental Health at Work (S-MGA) was conducted in collaboration with the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). The S-MGA was based on samples from statistics of the Federal Employment Agency (BA), which were merged into Integrated Employment Biographies by the IAB. We thank the participating employees and Infas (Institute of Applied Social Sciences) for collecting the data.

Funding

The 2011/2012 and 2017 rounds of the S-MGA study were funded internally by the BAuA (project no. F 2250 and F 2384). This article was written as part of the project “Mental health and work participation” at the BAuA (internally funded project no. F 2462).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 2A, 1353, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Paul Maurice Conway

  2. Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Berlin, Germany

    Uwe Rose, Maren Formazin, Ina Schöllgen & Hermann Burr

  3. Department of Epidemiology, Local Health Unit TO 3, Grugliasco, Turin, Italy

    Angelo d’Errico

  4. Department for Life Quality Studies, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Cristian Balducci

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  1. Paul Maurice Conway
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Correspondence to Paul Maurice Conway.

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The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical approval

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA; approval number 006_2016_Müller, 6 March 2016). All employees in the sample were contacted by mail and the interviews were only conducted after each respondent gave their informed oral consent (Rose et al. 2017). A written consent was given for the willingness to participate in the follow-up.

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Conway, P.M., Rose, U., Formazin, M. et al. Long-term associations of psychosocial working conditions with depressive symptoms and work-related emotional exhaustion: comparing effects in a 5-year prospective study of 1949 workers in Germany. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 96, 661–674 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-023-01959-8

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