Joint ICOH-WOPS & APA-PFAW global roundtable perspectives: exploring national policy approaches for psychological health at work through the 'National Policy Index' lens.

Worker psychological health is a significant global imperative that requires national policy action and stakeholder engagement. While national policy is a critical lever for improving worker psychological health, some countries are more progressive than others in relation to policy development and/or implementation. At the Joint Congress of the International Commission on Occupational Health, Scientific Committee on Work Organization and Psychosocial Factors and the Asia Pacific Academy for Psychosocial Factors at Work in Tokyo (September 2023), a Global Roundtable was held that to initiate international dialogue and knowledge exchange about national policy approaches for work-related psychological health.

[Anxiety and mood disorders are independent risk factors for cardiovascular diseases].

Objective: Psychiatric conditions are insufficiently highlighted as cardiovascular risk factors in the CVRM guideline. Objectives of this review are 1) to determine if anxiety and mood symptoms/disorders are independent cardiovascular risk factors; 2) to compare this risk to a population without these psychiatric conditions and 3) to ascertain the influence of psychiatric disease severity.

Design: Narrative systematic review METHOD: We searched for meta-analyses and systematic reviews in PubMed.

Social Dialogue and Psychosocial Risk Management: Added Value of Manager and Employee Representative Agreement in Risk Perception and Awareness.

The present study aimed to explore the added value of managers' and employee representatives' agreement in risk perception and awareness in explaining the management of more 'subjective' psychosocial risks as compared to the more 'objective' traditional OSH risks. The general assumption tested was whether the added value of agreement in risk perception and awareness between these parties would be larger for psychosocial risk management as compared to traditional OSH risk management. European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER-1) data were used from 7226 enterprises in which both managers and employee representatives were interviewed.

Decreasing employees' work stress by a participatory, organizational level work stress prevention approach: a multiple-case study in primary education.

Background: Work stress is an important problem among employees in education in the Netherlands. The present study aims to investigate the effects of a participatory organizational level work stress prevention approach to reduce (quantitative) job demands, increase resources (i.e.

Development of a new measure for mental retirement; testing of a three-factor structure of mentale retirement in different subgroups.

Background: The aim of this study is to develop a new measure for the concept of mental retirement and test the construct validity of the measure. Employees who are 'mentally retired' are present at their work physically, but have already said their goodbyes mentally. Mental retirement has a three-factor structure: developmental proactivity, work engagement and perceived appreciation.

Effect of a participative action intervention program on reducing mental retirement.

Background: The present study aimed to investigate the effects of a stepwise, bottom-up participatory program with a tailor-made intervention process addressing the level of mental retirement in a sample of Dutch employees. Mental retirement refers to feelings of being disconnected from your work and your organization. Prevention of mental retirement is important since sustainable employability is becoming more important in today's society due to the ageing of the working population and the changes in skills demands.

Process Evaluation of a Digital Platform-Based Implementation Strategy Aimed at Work Stress Prevention in a Health Care Organization.

Objective: The objective was to evaluate the process and feasibility of a digital platform-based implementation strategy aimed at work stress prevention.

Methods: The process evaluation was performed alongside a controlled trial within a health care organization, in the experimental group (N = 221). Mental models, context, and barriers and facilitators were measured.

Effectiveness of a digital platform-based implementation strategy to prevent work stress in a healthcare organization: a 12-month follow-up controlled trial.

Objectives Healthcare workers frequently deal with work stress. This is a risk factor for adverse mental and physical health effects. The objective of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a digital platform-based implementation strategy - compared to a control group - on stress, work stress determinants (ie.

Work Stress Interventions in Hospital Care: Effectiveness of the DISCovery Method.

Effective interventions to prevent work stress and to improve health, well-being, and performance of employees are of the utmost importance. This quasi-experimental intervention study presents a specific method for diagnosis of psychosocial risk factors at work and subsequent development and implementation of tailored work stress interventions, the so-called method. This method aims at improving employee health, well-being, and performance by optimizing the balance between job demands, job resources, and recovery from work.

The association between exposure to psychosocial work factors and mental health in older employees, a 3-year follow-up study.

Purpose: Unfavourable exposure to psychosocial work factors threatens older employees' mental health, and their sustained employment. This study assesses whether an improved compared to stable unfavourable and stable favourable exposure to psychosocial work factors is associated with a change in mental health in older employees at 3-year follow-up.

Methods: The current study used data from the Study on Transitions in Employment, Ability and Motivation (STREAM), in workers aged 45-65 years (n = 5249).

Stress Prevention@Work: a study protocol for the evaluation of a multifaceted integral stress prevention strategy to prevent employee stress in a healthcare organization: a cluster controlled trial.

Background: Adequate implementation of work-related stress management interventions can reduce or prevent work-related stress and sick leave in organizations. We developed a multifaceted integral stress-prevention strategy for organizations from several sectors that includes a digital platform and collaborative learning network. The digital platform contains a stepwise protocol to implement work-related stress-management interventions.

The role of autonomy and social support in the relation between psychosocial safety climate and stress in health care workers.

Background: Health care workers are exposed to psychosocial work factors. Autonomy and social support are psychosocial work factors that are related to stress, and are argued to largely result from the psychosocial safety climate within organisations. This study aimed to assess to what extent the relation between psychosocial safety climate and stress in health care workers can be explained by autonomy and social support.

Physical working conditions as covered in European monitoring questionnaires.

Background: The prevalence of workers with demanding physical working conditions in the European work force remains high, and occupational physical exposures are considered important risk factors for musculoskeletal disorders (MSD), a major burden for both workers and society. Exposures to physical workloads are therefore part of the European nationwide surveys to monitor working conditions and health. An interesting question is to what extent the same domains, dimensions and items referring to the physical workloads are covered in the surveys.

Long working hours and cancer risk: a multi-cohort study.

Background: Working longer than the maximum recommended hours is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, but the relationship of excess working hours with incident cancer is unclear.

Methods: This multi-cohort study examined the association between working hours and cancer risk in 116 462 men and women who were free of cancer at baseline. Incident cancers were ascertained from national cancer, hospitalisation and death registers; weekly working hours were self-reported.

Long working hours and risk of coronary heart disease and stroke: a systematic review and meta-analysis of published and unpublished data for 603,838 individuals.

Background: Long working hours might increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, but prospective evidence is scarce, imprecise, and mostly limited to coronary heart disease. We aimed to assess long working hours as a risk factor for incident coronary heart disease and stroke.

Methods: We identified published studies through a systematic review of PubMed and Embase from inception to Aug 20, 2014.

Job strain and the risk of stroke: an individual-participant data meta-analysis.

Background And Purpose: Psychosocial stress at work has been proposed to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. However, its role as a risk factor for stroke is uncertain.

Methods: We conducted an individual-participant-data meta-analysis of 196 380 males and females from 14 European cohort studies to investigate the association between job strain, a measure of work-related stress, and incident stroke.

Dimensional comparability of psychosocial working conditions as covered in European monitoring questionnaires.

Background: In most countries in the EU, national surveys are used to monitor working conditions and health. Since the development processes behind the various surveys are not necessarily theoretical, but certainly practical and political, the extent of similarity among the dimensions covered in these surveys has been unclear. Another interesting question is whether prominent models from scientific research on work and health are present in the surveys--bearing in mind that the primary focus of these surveys is on monitoring status and trends, not on mapping scientific models.

Who gets fired, who gets re-hired: the role of workers' contract, age, health, work ability, performance, work satisfaction and employee investments.

Purpose: Many workers have been dismissed in the past few years, either becoming unemployed or finding re-employment. The current study examined whether dismissal and its follow-up for the employee (re-employment versus unemployment) could be predicted from workers' employment contract and age, and their health status, work ability, work performance, work satisfaction and employee investments at baseline.

Methods: Our sample comprised a selection of participants from the Netherlands Working Conditions Survey 2010 who participated in a follow-up questionnaire in 2012 (N = 2,644).

Design of the DISCovery project: tailored work-oriented interventions to improve employee health, well-being, and performance-related outcomes in hospital care.

Background: It is well-known that health care workers in today's general hospitals have to deal with high levels of job demands, which could have negative effects on their health, well-being, and job performance. A way to reduce job-related stress reactions and to optimize positive work-related outcomes is to raise the level of specific job resources and opportunities to recover from work. However, the question remains how to translate the optimization of the balance between job demands, job resources, and recovery opportunities into effective workplace interventions.

Work stress and risk of cancer: meta-analysis of 5700 incident cancer events in 116,000 European men and women.

Objective: To investigate whether work related stress, measured and defined as job strain, is associated with the overall risk of cancer and the risk of colorectal, lung, breast, or prostate cancers.

Design: Meta-analysis of pooled prospective individual participant data from 12 European cohort studies including 116,056 men and women aged 17-70 who were free from cancer at study baseline and were followed-up for a median of 12 years. Work stress was measured and defined as job strain, which was self reported at baseline.

Job strain as a risk factor for leisure-time physical inactivity: an individual-participant meta-analysis of up to 170,000 men and women: the IPD-Work Consortium.

Unfavorable work characteristics, such as low job control and too high or too low job demands, have been suggested to increase the likelihood of physical inactivity during leisure time, but this has not been verified in large-scale studies. The authors combined individual-level data from 14 European cohort studies (baseline years from 1985-1988 to 2006-2008) to examine the association between unfavorable work characteristics and leisure-time physical inactivity in a total of 170,162 employees (50% women; mean age, 43.5 years).

Impact of employment contract changes on workers' quality of working life, job insecurity, health and work-related attitudes.

Objectives: Changes in employment contracts may impact the quality of working life, job insecurity, health and work-related attitudes. We examined the validity of two partly competing theoretical approaches. Based upon a segmentation approach, we expected no change in scores among stable trajectories, whereas upward trajectories were expected to be for the better and downward trajectories to be for the worse (Hypothesis 1).

Employment contracts and health selection: unhealthy employees out and healthy employees in?

Objective: The healthy worker effect implies that healthy workers go "up" in employment status whereas less healthy workers go "down" into precarious temporary employment or unemployment. These hypotheses were tested during an economic recession, by predicting various upward and downward contract trajectories, based on workers' health status, work-related well-being, and work ability.

Methods: Two waves (2008 and 2009) of the Netherlands Working Conditions Cohort Study (N = 7112) were used and logistic regression analyses were performed to test the hypothesis of this study.

Job strain as a risk factor for coronary heart disease: a collaborative meta-analysis of individual participant data.

Background: Published work assessing psychosocial stress (job strain) as a risk factor for coronary heart disease is inconsistent and subject to publication bias and reverse causation bias. We analysed the relation between job strain and coronary heart disease with a meta-analysis of published and unpublished studies.

Methods: We used individual records from 13 European cohort studies (1985-2006) of men and women without coronary heart disease who were employed at time of baseline assessment.

Job strain and alcohol intake: a collaborative meta-analysis of individual-participant data from 140,000 men and women.

Background: The relationship between work-related stress and alcohol intake is uncertain. In order to add to the thus far inconsistent evidence from relatively small studies, we conducted individual-participant meta-analyses of the association between work-related stress (operationalised as self-reported job strain) and alcohol intake.

Methodology And Principal Findings: We analysed cross-sectional data from 12 European studies (n = 142 140) and longitudinal data from four studies (n = 48 646).