Psychosocial job demand and control: multi-site musculoskeletal pain in Swedish police

Abstract

Aims: Police have a high prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders. While physical factors contributing to this have been explored, little is known regarding the contribution of the psychosocial work environment. This study explores the association between elements of the JDC model, social support and multi-site musculoskeletal pain among Swedish police. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, responses from 4185 police were collected using a self-administered online survey. The survey included questions on the psychosocial work environment and musculoskeletal pain, as well as several potential confounding factors. Logistic regression analyses were performed to explore the degree of association between 1) the indices for job demands, job control, social support and multi-site musculoskeletal pain and 2) the four categories of the JDC model, social support and multi-site musculoskeletal pain. Results: The overall psychosocial work environment of Swedish police was characterised by low control and high social support. Police who reported active and high strain jobs were found to have an increase in the odds ratio for multi-site musculoskeletal pain (OR 1.45 (95% CI 1.08–1.94) and 1.84 (1.51–2.24), respectively). High demands, which is a component in the categories for active and high strain jobs, was also found to be associated with an increase in the odds ratio for multi-site musculoskeletal pain (OR 1.66 (1.45–1.91)). High social support was associated with a decrease in the odds ratio for multi-site musculoskeletal pain (OR 0.72 (0.57–0.86)). Conclusions: The psychosocial work environment should be considered when investigating factors related to the health and wellbeing of police.

Longitudinal Associations between Anatomical Regions of Pain and Work Conditions: A Study from The SwePain Cohort

“…For example, in a longitudinal study of 5136 employees from the Netherlands, Oakman et al [19] found that high job demands increased the risk of musculoskeletal pain by almost 60% during a four-year measurement period. Our findings are also consistent with several cross-sectional studies related to this field [7,12,15,16,17,21,23].…”

“…Emerging evidence suggests that work conditions such as workload (mechanical and physical) and psychosocial work stressors (e.g., high job demands and low support) are strongly linked with musculoskeletal pain [7,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23]. The number of ARP has been related to physical workload [21], exposure to manual material handling, and awkward work postures [24].…”

“…However, most studies have focused on specific working populations [7,14,15,16,19,23] and relied on cross-sectional data [8,12,15,16,17,21,23]. A few prospective studies [18,19,25] have examined the extent to which the number of ARP contributes to work conditions and how the association between work conditions and the number of ARP develops over time, although these relationships have not been fully elucidated.…”

Psychosocial Job Strain and Musculoskeletal Pain in Cabin Crew – Does Gender Matter?

“…Later social support was added to the model as a third dimension, postulating that high social support could buffer high strain work situations (Karasek & Theorell, 1990). The JDC model is supported by several studies investigating MSP in wage-earners in general (Larsen et al, 2019;Vanroelen et al, 2009), as well as in cabin crew (Lee et al, 2008;Wahlstedt et al, 2010).…”

“…Several studies have documented PSYJS to be associated with MSP (Lang et al, 2012;Larsen et al, 2019). A commonly used model to explain how psychosocial factors affect MSP is the Job Demand Control Model (Karasek & Theorell, 1990;Larsen et al, 2019). The JDC model hypothesize that a high strain job, e.g., high psychological demands and low control, could lead to MSP.…”