Our study provides support for work-unit social capital being a protective factor for individual long-term sickness absence among hospital employees in the Capital Region of Denmark.

Background: Psychological distress is potentially linked to the risk of dementia through neurologic and cardiovascular mechanisms. Vital exhaustion (VE) is a mental state of psychological distress, which could be a risk factor for dementia. Objective: To investigate whether VE is a risk factor for dementia in later life. Methods: We used data from 6,807 participants attending the third survey of the Copenhagen City Heart Study in 1991–1994. VE was assessed by 17 symptoms (score: 0–17) from the Maastricht Questionnaire. Information on dementia was obtained from national registers. Risk time for dementia was counted from five years after VE assessment for participants > 55 years at the time of VE assessment. For younger participants, risk time for dementia was counted from the year they turned 60 years and onwards. Participants were followed until 2016. We used Poisson regression to calculate incidence rate ratios (IRR) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: During an average follow-up of 10 years, 872 participants were registered with dementia. We found a dose-response relation between the number of VE symptoms and the incidence of dementia. For every additional VE symptom, the dementia incidence increased by 2% (IRR = 1.024; 95% CI: 1.004–1.043). Adjustment for socio-demographic and health-related factors did not change the results substantially. Neither did stratification by age, sex, educational level, and marital status. Conclusion: We found evidence that VE is a risk factor for dementia. Our sensitivity analyses supported that this association was not only due to VE being a potential prodromal sign of dementia.

BackgroundThe aim of the present study was to investigate whether the depressive symptoms of the bullied respondents differed according to who the perpetrator was.MethodsWe used cross-sectional questionnaire data from two representative cohorts: the Danish Working Environment Cohort Study (DWECS 2010) and the Work and Health Study (WH 2012). After excluding respondents not having a leader, or being self-employed, assisting spouses, and those reporting multiple perpetrators in WH 2012, the statistical analysis included 2478 bullied individuals. We compared respondents reporting being bullied by their (1) leader, (2) subordinates, (3) clients / customers / patients / students, or (4) colleagues, respectively. The occurrence of depressive symptoms was measured by the Major Depression Inventory (MDI).ResultsThe most frequent perpetrator of bullying was clients (41.5 %) in DWECS 2010 and colleagues (60.3 %) in WH 2012. In DWECS 2010, the MDI score of those being bullied by clients were significantly lower than the MDI scores of the other groups. In WH 2012, respondents who reported bullying from leaders had a significantly higher mean MDI score than participants being bullied by colleagues. Also in WH 2012, our results indicated that those who were bullied by leaders had a higher MDI score than those bullied by clients, although this difference was not statistically significant at conventional levels.ConclusionOur findings indicated a similar pattern in the two cohorts, with a tendency of more severe depressive symptoms among employees who are exposed to bullying by their leaders, and the least severe symptoms among those who are bullied by clients.

Workplace bullying has important consequences for labor market outcomes. Psychological stress reactions may play a vital role in this process.

Both gender and employment are critical and intersecting social determinants of mental and physical health. This paper describes the protocol used to conduct a systematic literature review of the relationship between “gendered working environments” and mental health. Gendered working environments (GWE) are conceptualised as involving: (1) differences in selection into work, and more specifically, occupations; (2) variation in employment arrangements and working hours; (3) disparities in psychosocial exposures at work, and; (4) differences in selection out of work. Methods/design: The review will adhere to a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) search procedure. Key words will be identified that are specific to each of the four domains of GWE. The databases used for the search will be Scopus, Pubmed, Proquest, and Web of Science. Keywords will be adapted for the specific requirements of each electronic database. Inclusion criteria are: Using a validated scale to measure mental health (outcome); including exposures related to the four domains of GWE; reporting estimates for both men and women; and use of a cohort, case-control, or cross-sectional design. Studies will be excluded if they were published more than 10 years ago, are not in English or do not present extractable data on the relationship between GWE and mental health. Discussion: The proposed review will provide evidence about the numerous and complex ways in which employment and gender intersect (and are reinforced) to influence mental health over the life course.