Are social conflicts at work associated with depressive symptomatology? Results from the population-based LIFE-Adult-Study.
J Occup Med Toxicol
; 15: 1, 2020.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-32082403
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Psychosocial stressors in the workplace can be detrimental to mental health. Conflicts at work, e.g. aggression, hostility or threats from coworkers, supervisors or customers, can be considered a psychosocial stressor, possibly increasing risk for depressive symptoms. Existing studies, however, differ in the assessment of social conflicts, i.e. as individual- or job-level characteristics. Here, we investigated the association between conflicts at work assessed as objective job characteristics, and depressive symptomatology, using data from a large population-based sample. Additionally, we investigated gender differences and the impact of personality traits and social resources.METHODS:
We used data from the population-based LIFE-Adult-Study from Leipzig, Germany. Information on conflicts at work, assessed as job characteristics, were drawn from the Occupational Information Network, depressive symptoms were assessed via the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Multilevel linear regression models with individuals and occupations as levels of analysis were applied to investigate the association between conflicts at work and depressive symptoms.RESULTS:
Our sample included 2164 employed adults (age 18-65 years, mean 49.3, SD 7.9) in 65 occupations. No association between conflicts s at work and depressive symptomatology was found (men b = - 0.14; p = 0.74, women b = 0.17, p = 0.72). Risk for depression was mostly explained by individual-level factors like e.g. neuroticism or level of social resources. The model showed slightly higher explanatory power in the female subsample.CONCLUSION:
Conflicts at work, assessed as objective job characteristics, were not associated with depressive symptoms. Possible links between interpersonal conflict and impaired mental health might rather be explained by subjective perceptions of social stressors and individual coping styles.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Diagnostic_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Language:
En
Journal:
J Occup Med Toxicol
Year:
2020
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Germany