Psychosocial working conditions and cognitive complaints among Swedish employees.

Background: Cognitive complaints involving problems with concentration, memory, decision-making and thinking are relatively common in the work force. The sensitivity of both subjective and objective cognitive functioning to common psychiatric conditions, stress levels and to cognitive load makes it plausible that psychosocial working conditions play a role in cognitive complaints. Thus, this study aimed to test the associations between psychosocial work factors and cognitive complaints in nationally representative samples of the Swedish work force.

Non-listening and self centered leadership--relationships to socioeconomic conditions and employee mental health.

Background: The way in which leadership is experienced in different socioeconomic strata is of interest per se, as well as how it relates to employee mental health.

Methods: Three waves of SLOSH (Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health, a questionnaire survey on a sample of the Swedish working population) were used, 2006, 2008 and 2010 (n = 5141). The leadership variables were: "Non-listening leadership" (one question: "Does your manager listen to you?"--four response categories), "Self centered leadership" (sum of three five-graded questions--"non-participating", "asocial" and "loner").

Workplace bullying, working environment and health.

Improved work organisation could be of importance for decreased bullying in workplaces. Participants in the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH) responded to questions about work and workplace and whether they had been bullied during the past year in 2006. Those in worksites with at least five employees who did not report that they had been bullied in 2006 and without workplace change between 2006 and 2008 constituted the final sample (n=1,021 men and 1,182 women).

Conflicts at work--the relationship with workplace factors, work characteristics and self-rated health.

Few studies have considered the work environment in relation to workplace conflicts and those who have been published have included relatively few psychosocial work environment factors. Little research has been published on the consequences of workplace conflicts in terms of employee health. In this study, the statistical relationships between work and workplace characteristics on one hand and conflicts on the other hand are examined.

Managerial leadership is associated with employee stress, health, and sickness absence independently of the demand-control-support model.

Objectives: Research on health effects of managerial leadership has only taken established work environment factors into account to a limited extent. We therefore investigated the associations between a measure of Attentive Managerial Leadership (AML), and perceived stress, age-relative self-rated health, and sickness absence due to overstrain/fatigue, adjusting for the dimensions of the Demand-Control-Support model.

Participants: Blue- and white-collar workers from Finland, Germany and Sweden employed in a multi-national forest industry company (N=12,622).

Psychosocial working conditions and depressive symptoms among Swedish employees.

Purpose: To investigate prospective associations between working conditions and depressive symptoms in Swedish men and women.

Methods: The study was based on SLOSH (N = 5,985), a follow-up of a representative sample of gainfully employed Swedes 16-64 years of age from the Swedish Work Environment Survey 2003. Work demands, decision authority, support and conflicts at work were measured in 2003.

Demand, control and social climate as predictors of emotional exhaustion symptoms in working Swedish men and women.

Aims: Most studies on burnout have been cross-sectional and focused on specific occupations. In the present study we prospectively investigated the association between demands, control, support and conflicts as well as downsizing and emotional exhaustion in men and women derived from a representative sample of the working population in Sweden.

Methods: The study comprised working men (1,511) and women (1,493), who participated in the Swedish Work Environment Survey (SWES) in 2003 and had no physical exhaustion and prior sick leave at baseline.

The impact of moderate and major workplace expansion and downsizing on the psychosocial and physical work environment and income in Sweden.

Aims: To describe the effect of organizational change (moderate and major expansion and downsizing) on psychosocial work characteristics, physical hazards, and income in a representative sample of larger workplaces in Sweden.

Methods: Annual changes in workforce size for the years 1991-1996 were derived from tax registry data. Work environment characteristics were measured in a sub-set of participants from the biennial Swedish Work Environment Surveys for 1991, 1993, and 1995.

Workplace conflict resolution and the health of employees in the Swedish and Finnish units of an industrial company.

New patterns of working, the globalisation of production and the introduction of information technologies are changing the way we work. This new working environment has eliminated some risks whilst introducing others. The importance of the psychosocial working environment for the health of employees is now well documented, but the effects of managerial style have received relatively little attention.

Dual source support and control at work in relation to poor health.

Background And Aim: Social support and decision authority in relation to health has been examined in extensive research. However, research on the role of different constellations of support sources is conspicuously lacking. The aim of the present study is to describe the health of employees in eight contrasting situations that differ with regard to support from superiors and from workmates and with regard to decision authority.

Coping with critical life events and lack of control--the exertion of control.

Coping strategies in relation to unfair treatment or conflicts at work are discussed. 'Covert coping' has been assessed by means of a short questionnaire. Its relationship with cardiovascular risk and sick leave has been examined in an epidemiological study (WOLF) of working men and women in Stockholm.

Bridges, pathways and valleys: labour market position and risk of hospitalization in a Swedish sample aged 55-63.

Background: The combination of population ageing and increasingly early labour market exit (LME) throughout Europe has made older age a key issue in social policy and research. There is increasing awareness that older people are a heterogeneous group in which health inequalities persist. However, the effects of different types of LME on health have received relatively little attention.

Workplace expansion, long-term sickness absence, and hospital admission.

Background: Downsizing has in previous studies, as well as in public debate, been associated with increased sickness absence. No studies have, however, looked at the long-term relation between workplace expansion and morbidity.

Methods: We investigated exposure to personnel change during 1991-96 in relation to long-term (90 days or longer) medically certified sickness absence and hospital admission for specified diagnoses during 1997-99 in 24?036 participants with a complete employment record in the biennial national Swedish Work Environment Surveys from 1989 to the end of 1999.