The Study on Mental Health at Work: Design and sampling

Abstract

Aims: The Study on Mental Health at Work (S-MGA) generates the first nationwide representative survey enabling the exploration of the relationship between working conditions, mental health and functioning. This paper describes the study design, sampling procedures and data collection, and presents a summary of the sample characteristics. Methods: S-MGA is a representative study of German employees aged 31–60 years subject to social security contributions. The sample was drawn from the employment register based on a two-stage cluster sampling procedure. Firstly, 206 municipalities were randomly selected from a pool of 12,227 municipalities in Germany. Secondly, 13,590 addresses were drawn from the selected municipalities for the purpose of conducting 4500 face-to-face interviews. The questionnaire covers psychosocial working and employment conditions, measures of mental health, work ability and functioning. Data from personal interviews were combined with employment histories from register data. Descriptive statistics of socio-demographic characteristics and logistic regressions analyses were used for comparing population, gross sample and respondents. Results: In total, 4511 face-to-face interviews were conducted. A test for sampling bias revealed that individuals in older cohorts participated more often, while individuals with an unknown educational level, residing in major cities or with a non-German ethnic background were slightly underrepresented. Conclusions: There is no indication of major deviations in characteristics between the basic population and the sample of respondents. Hence, S-MGA provides representative data for research on work and health, designed as a cohort study with plans to rerun the survey 5 years after the first assessment.

Workplace bullying and depressive symptoms among employees in Germany: prospective associations regarding severity and the role of the perpetrator

“…We used the Study on Mental Health at Work (S-MGA), a German nation-wide representative cohort (baseline 2011/2012, follow-up 2017). At baseline, the target population consisted of all employees in Germany born in 1951-1980 as of 31 December 2010 but excluding civil servants, self-employed individuals and freelancers (Rose et al 2017). This multipurpose cohort was confined to these birth years because most people in employment are between 31 and 60 years, so they finished their education and training and are not yet retired.…”

Workplace bullying among employees in Germany: prevalence estimates and the role of the perpetrator

“…All employees in the sample were contacted by mail and the interviews were only conducted after each respondent gave their informed oral and written consent (Rose et al 2017). …”

Erholungsbeeinträchtigungen bei Beschäftigten

“…Das Geschlechterverhältnis war hierbei nahezu ausgeglichen (2105 Frauen, 2096 Männer). Weitere Details zum Studiendesign und zur Stichprobenziehung der S-MGA sind dem dazugehörigen Kohortenprofil zu entnehmen [12].…”

“…Die vorliegende Untersuchung gibt einen Überblick über die Verbreitung von Erholungsbeeinträchtigungen bei Beschäftigten in Deutschland, welche im Zuge der Digitalisierung stärker in den Fokus von Forschung und Praxis rücken. Die Analysen wurden mit Daten durchgeführt, die repräsentativ sind für in Deutschland sozialversicherungspflich-tig Beschäftigte im Alter von 31 bis 60 Jahren [12].…”