BackgroundDepressive symptoms are potential outcomes of poorly functioning work environments. Such symptoms are frequent and cause considerable suffering for the employees as well as financial loss for the employers. Accordingly good prospective studies of psychosocial working conditions and depressive symptoms are valuable. Scientific reviews of such studies have pointed at methodological difficulties but still established a few job risk factors. Those reviews were published some years ago. There is need for an updated systematic review using the GRADE system. In addition, gender related questions have been insufficiently reviewed.MethodInclusion criteria for the studies published 1990 to June 2013: 1. European and English speaking countries. 2. Quantified results describing the relationship between exposure (psychosocial or physical/chemical) and outcome (standardized questionnaire assessment of depressive symptoms or interview-based clinical depression). 3. Prospective or comparable case-control design with at least 100 participants. 4. Assessments of exposure (working conditions) and outcome at baseline and outcome (depressive symptoms) once again after follow-up 1-5 years later. 5. Adjustment for age and adjustment or stratification for gender.Studies filling inclusion criteria were subjected to assessment of 1.) relevance and 2.) quality using predefined criteria. Systematic review of the evidence was made using the GRADE system. When applicable, meta-analysis of the magnitude of associations was made. Consistency of findings was examined for a number of possible confounders and publication bias was discussed.ResultsFifty-nine articles of high or medium high scientific quality were included. Moderately strong evidence (grade three out of four) was found for job strain (high psychological demands and low decision latitude), low decision latitude and bullying having significant impact on development of depressive symptoms. Limited evidence (grade two) was shown for psychological demands, effort reward imbalance, low support, unfavorable social climate, lack of work justice, conflicts, limited skill discretion, job insecurity and long working hours. There was no differential gender effect of adverse job conditions on depressive symptomsConclusionThere is substantial empirical evidence that employees, both men and women, who report lack of decision latitude, job strain and bullying, will experience increasing depressive symptoms over time. These conditions are amenable to organizational interventions.

BackgroundPractitioners and decision makers in the medical and insurance systems need knowledge on the relationship between work exposures and burnout. Many burnout studies – original as well as reviews - restricted their analyses to emotional exhaustion or did not report results on cynicism, personal accomplishment or global burnout. To meet this need we carried out this review and meta-analyses with the aim to provide systematically graded evidence for associations between working conditions and near-future development of burnout symptoms.MethodsA wide range of work exposure factors was screened. Inclusion criteria were: 1) Study performed in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand 1990–2013. 2) Prospective or comparable case control design. 3) Assessments of exposure (work) and outcome at baseline and at least once again during follow up 1–5 years later. Twenty-five articles met the predefined relevance and quality criteria. The GRADE-system with its 4-grade evidence scale was used.ResultsMost of the 25 studies focused emotional exhaustion, fewer cynicism and still fewer personal accomplishment. Moderately strong evidence (grade 3) was concluded for the association between job control and reduced emotional exhaustion and between low workplace support and increased emotional exhaustion. Limited evidence (grade 2) was found for the associations between workplace justice, demands, high work load, low reward, low supervisor support, low co-worker support, job insecurity and change in emotional exhaustion. Cynicism was associated with most of these work factors. Reduced personal accomplishment was only associated with low reward. There were few prospective studies with sufficient quality on adverse chemical, biological and physical factors and burnout.ConclusionWhile high levels of job support and workplace justice were protective for emotional exhaustion, high demands, low job control, high work load, low reward and job insecurity increased the risk for developing exhaustion. Our approach with a wide range of work exposure factors analysed in relation to the separate dimensions of burnout expanded the knowledge of associations, evidence as well as research needs. The potential of organizational interventions is illustrated by the findings that burnout symptoms are strongly influenced by structural factors such as job demands, support and the possibility to exert control.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-017-4153-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

BackgroundResearch indicate that social class mobility could be potentially important for health, but whether this is due to the movement itself or a result of people having been integrated in different class contexts is, to date, difficult to infer. In addition, although several theories suggest that transitions between classes in the social hierarchy can be stressful experiences, few studies have empirically examined whether such movements may have health effects, over and above the implications of “being” in these classes. In an attempt to investigate whether intragenerational social mobility is associated with functional somatic symptoms in mid-adulthood, the current study tests three partially contrasting theories.MethodThe dissociative theory suggests that mobility in general and upward mobility in particular may be linked to psychological distress, while the falling from grace theory indicates that downward mobility is especially stressful. In contrast, the acculturation theory holds that the health implications of social mobility is not due to the movement itself but attributed to the class contexts in which people find themselves. Diagonal Reference Models were used on a sample of 924 individuals who in 1981 graduated from 9th grade in the municipality of Luleå, Sweden. Social mobility was operationalized as change in occupational class between age 30 and 42 (measured in 1995 and 2007). The health outcome was functional somatic symptoms at age 42, defined as a clustering self-reported physical symptoms, palpitation and sleeping difficulties during the last 12 months.ResultsOverall mobility was not associated with higher levels of functional somatic symptoms compared to being immobile (p = 0.653). After controlling for prior and current class, sex, parental social position, general health, civil status, education and unemployment, the association between downward mobility was borderline significant (p = 0.055) while upward mobility was associated with lower levels of functional somatic symptoms (p = 0.03).ConclusionThe current study did not find unanimous support for any of the theories. Nevertheless, it sheds light on the possibility that upward mobility may be beneficial to reduce stress-related health problems in mid-life over and above the exposure to prior and current class, while downward mobility can be of less importance for middle-age health complaints.

This study examined the nature and prevalence of bullying/victimization by peers and teachers reported by 1,284 students (mean age = 15.2 years) drawn from a representative sample of 25 South Australian government and private schools. Students completed a self-report survey containing questions relating to teacher and peer-related bullying, measures of psychosocial adjustment, and personality. The results showed that students could be clearly differentiated according to the type of victimization they had experienced. Students reporting peer victimization typically showed high levels of social alienation, poorer psychological functioning, and poorer self-esteem and self-image. By contrast, victims of teacher victimization were more likely to be rated as less able academically, had less intention to complete school and were more likely to be engaged in high-risk behaviours such as gambling, drug use and under-age drinking. Most bullying was found to occur at school rather than outside school and involved verbal aggression rather than physical harm. Boys were significantly more likely to be bullied than girls, with the highest rates being observed amongst boys attending single-sex government schools. Girls were more likely to be subject to bullying if they attended coeducational private schools. The implications of this work for enhancing school-retention rates and addressing psychological distress amongst adolescent students are discussed.

There are long-term mental health scarring effects of exposure to youth unemployment and multiple exposure to unemployment during the life course.

Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory is appealing as a conceptual tool for guiding public mental health interventions. However, his theory underwent significant changes since its first inception during the late 1970s until his death in 2005, due to which the implications that can be drawn might differ depending on what concepts (i.e. early or later) of the theory is utilized. The aim of this paper was to examine how different concepts of Bronfenbrenner's theory have been utilized in (public) mental health research, and to analyse the value of these different uses for guiding public mental health policy and practice. A systematic search for articles that have utilized concepts of Bronfenbrenner's theory within the field of mental health resulted in a review of 16 published papers. We found that one set of papers (N = 10) used the early concepts of ecological systems without investigating interactions between these systems, while another set of papers used the concepts of ecological systems by also investigating interactions within and between these systems (N = 4). Another limited set of papers (N = 2) utilized the later concepts of proximal processes and the PPCT model. Our results show that studies using Bronfenbrenner's ecological system concepts by clearly considering interactions Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi

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Despite increasing awareness of the importance of gender perspectives in health science, there is conceptual confusion regarding the meaning and the use of central gender theoretical concepts. We argue that it is essential to clarify how central concepts are used within gender theory and how to apply them to health research. We identify six gender theoretical concepts as central and interlinked-but problematic and ambiguous in health science: sex, gender, intersectionality, embodiment, gender equity and gender equality. Our recommendations are that: the concepts sex and gender can benefit from a gender relational theoretical approach (i.e., a focus on social processes and structures) but with additional attention to the interrelations between sex and gender; intersectionality should go beyond additive analyses to study complex intersections between the major factors which potentially influence health and ensure that gendered power relations and social context are included; we need to be aware of the various meanings given to embodiment, which achieve an integration of gender and health and attend to different levels of analyses to varying degrees; and appreciate that gender equality concerns absence of discrimination between women and men while gender equity focuses on women's and men's health needs, whether similar or different. We conclude that there is a constant need to justify and clarify our use of these concepts in order to advance gender theoretical development. Our analysis is an invitation for dialogue but also a call to make more effective use of the knowledge base which has already developed among gender theorists in health sciences in the manner proposed in this paper.