Rhythm of the job stress blues : Psychosocial working conditions and depression in working life and across retirement

A work environment characterized by poor psychosocial working conditions may lead to stress and mental health problems such as depression, a common and burdensome public health problem with significant consequences for individuals and for society at large. A number of psychosocial working characteristics have been found to be associated with increased depressive symptoms or clinical depression. This thesis aims to further examine how certain psychosocial working conditions predict depressive symptoms over time, in working life and across retirement. This was done by using several repeated measures from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH) in 2006–2018. In study I, we investigated how long-term patterns of exposure to job demands and job control were associated with major depressive symptoms. Those with high strain (high demands, low control) and active (high demands, high control) jobs were more likely to have subsequent major depressive symptoms compared to those with low strain jobs (low demands, high control). However, after adjusting for baseline depressive symptoms and various demographic factors, the associations did not remain statistically significant. In study II, we assessed how job demands, job control and workplace social support were related to long-term development of depressive symptoms. A perception of high job demands and low social support predicted higher or increasing depressive symptom trajectories. In addition, negative changes in job demands, job control and social support were associated with increased symptoms, indicating that the onset of poor working conditions could negatively impact depressive symptoms. In study III, we investigated simultaneous and lagged bidirectional associations between job demands, job control, balance between demands and control, social support, procedural justice, effort, reward, balance between efforts and rewards, and depressive symptoms, while controlling for individual time-stable characteristics. There were associations between ...