Effects of psychosocial work factors and psychological distress on self‐assessed work ability: A 7‐year follow‐up in a general working population

Abstract

Strategies for sustainable work ability should focus on both working conditions and health factors. Am. J. Ind. Med. 60:121-130, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Predictors of Work Ability in Individuals With a Common Mental Disorder: Is There an Effect of Metacognitive Beliefs Among Poor Physical Health and Emotional Distress?

“…The present results show consistencies with other studies. We found that number of physical disorders diagnosed by a physician predicted present and future work ability (e.g., van der Vijfeijke et al, 2013) and that emotional distress is an independent factor associated with work ability (e.g., Leijon et al, 2017; Martimo, Varonen, Husman, & Viikari-Juntura, 2007). Specifically, we found that depression symptoms predicted present and future work ability.…”

“…The WAI has been criticised on theoretical grounds, as it consists of a combination of factors that do not seem to form a single dimension of work ability as intended (Martus, Jakob, Rose, Seibt, & Freude, 2010; Radkiewicz, Widerszal-Bazyl, & NEXT-Study Group, 2005). However, several studies have shown that using single items from the WAI offer reliable indicators of work ability and have approximately the same predictive validity as the whole scale (Ahlstrom et al, 2010; Kinnunen & Nätti, 2018; Leijon et al, 2017; Lindberg et al, 2009; Lundin et al, 2017; Roelen et al, 2014). Among its items, the item on individuals’ own evaluation of their work ability compared with lifetime best (work ability scale; WAS) is most commonly used.…”

“…As self-assessed present and future work ability is related to short- and long-term sickness absence and disability pension, there is a need to identify the psychological determinants of work ability with a view to developing interventions that can have an impact on them, thus increasing work ability and helping to improve return to work and good occupational functioning. While psychosocial work factors such as conflicting role expectations (Emberland & Knardahl, 2015) and decreased job control (Boström, Sluiter, & Hagberg, 2012) are of particular relevance to level of work ability, there is also evidence suggesting that individual factors such as mental ill health independently contribute (e.g., Leijon et al, 2017). In particular, common mental disorders (CMD) such as anxiety and depression constitute major public health and economic challenges as they are associated with an increased risk of becoming unemployed, are related to high incidence of sickness absence (Rai et al, 2012; van Rijn, Robroek, Brouwer & Burdorf, 2014; Wittchen et al, 2011) and are the biggest single cause of disability benefit claims in Western countries (OECD, 2012).…”

“…Physical health is a marker of work ability in itself and ‘number of diagnoses by a physician’ has shown excellent ability to predict long-term sickness absence in the subsequent year (Lundin et al, 2017). Moreover, severity of psychological distress is associated with lower work ability (Leijon et al, 2017), and it is necessary to control for the overlap between metacognitive beliefs and distress, as a potential association between metacognitive beliefs and work ability might merely reflect elevated psychopathology (Wells, 2009). Our hypotheses were as follows: (a) current work ability will positively correlated with future work ability; (b) present and future work ability will be negatively correlated with number of physical disorders; (c) present and future work ability will be negatively correlated with anxiety and depression symptoms; (d) metacognitions will be negatively correlated with present and future work ability; (e) number of physical disorders and emotional distress will account for independent variance in present and future work ability; and (f) metacognitive beliefs will account for additional variance in present and future work ability when controlling for age, gender, physical disorders and emotional distress.…”

Reliability and Factor Structure of the 10-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) among Portuguese adults

“…Psychological distress is a serious public health problem that affects college students [1][2][3] and the general working population 4 . These symptoms are disabling and can harm students' school performance and workers' ability to perform their functions 4,5 . Kessler et al 6 showed that developed countries were most affected by mental illness.…”