The job content questionnaire in various occupational contexts: applying a latent class model.

Objective: To evaluate Job Content Questionnaire(JCQ) performance using the latent class model.

Methods: We analysed cross-sectional studies conducted in Brazil and examined three occupational categories: petroleum industry workers (n=489), teachers (n=4392) and primary healthcare workers (3078)and 1552 urban workers from a representative sample of the city of Feira de Santana in Bahia, Brazil. An appropriate number of latent classes was extracted and described each occupational category using latent class analysis, a multivariate method that evaluates constructs and takes into accountthe latent characteristics underlying the structure of measurement scales.

Job strain and cognitive decline: a prospective study of the framingham offspring cohort.

Background: Workplace stress is known to be related with many behavioral and disease outcomes. However, little is known about its prospective relationship with measures of cognitive decline.

Objective: To investigate the association of job strain, psychological demands and job control on cognitive decline.

Insomnia increases risk for cardiovascular events in women and in men with low socioeconomic status: a longitudinal, register-based study.

Objectives: Insomnia and short and long sleep durations have all been linked to cardiovascular disease. Male gender and low socioeconomic status are also related to cardiovascular disease, but it is unclear whether these two factors modify the impact of poor sleep on cardiovascular disease incidence.

Methods: Participants (5875 men and 7742 women ages 45 to 64 with no history of cardiovascular disease from the general population of Malmö, Sweden; participation rate 41%) were enrolled from 1992 to 1994 and followed until 2005 or until the first cardiovascular event (defined as myocardial infarction, stroke, or death due to ischemic heart disease), as recorded by official registers.

Factor structure and longitudinal measurement invariance of the demand control support model: an evidence from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH).

Objectives: To examine the factor structure and to evaluate the longitudinal measurement invariance of the demand-control-support questionnaire (DCSQ), using the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH).

Methods: A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) models within the framework of structural equation modeling (SEM) have been used to examine the factor structure and invariance across time.

Results: Four factors: psychological demand, skill discretion, decision authority and social support, were confirmed by CFA at baseline, with the best fit obtained by removing the item repetitive work of skill discretion.

Associations of job strain and lifestyle risk factors with risk of coronary artery disease: a meta-analysis of individual participant data.

Background: It is unclear whether a healthy lifestyle mitigates the adverse effects of job strain on coronary artery disease. We examined the associations of job strain and lifestyle risk factors with the risk of coronary artery disease.

Methods: We pooled individual-level data from 7 cohort studies comprising 102 128 men and women who were free of existing coronary artery disease at baseline (1985-2000).

Insomnia symptoms, sleep duration, and disability pensions: a prospective study of Swedish workers.

Background: Previous studies have found insomnia and long sleep duration to be independently associated with subsequent disability pension (DP). However, the issue of a possible gender-based pattern in this context has received little attention.

Purpose: This study aims to assess the impact of insomnia symptoms and sleep duration on the DP rates among Swedish women and men during a 12-year follow-up period.

Can high psychological job demands, low decision latitude, and high job strain predict disability pensions? A 12-year follow-up of middle-aged Swedish workers.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate whether job strain, psychological demands, and decision latitude are independent determinants of disability pension rates over a 12-year follow-up period.

Methods: We studied 3,181 men and 3,359 women, all middle-aged and working at least 30 h per week, recruited from the general population of Malmö, Sweden, in 1992. The participation rate was 41 %.

Description of a large-scale study design to assess work-stress-disease associations for cardiovascular disease.

We claim that a new level of studies is needed to answer a series of important questions about the expanding global chronic disease burden for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and for related conditions such as diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity. These require a new study design structure, related to a new level of theory that goes beyond the current single-factor, a-theoretic epidemiological studies. This new platform for the design of large-scale Work/Stress/Disease studies would assess CVD-related disease mechanisms in a more general and dynamic form, based on the use of new tools for measuring autonomic functions in an occupational stress context and a new theory of disease causation.

Psychosocial working conditions and active leisure-time physical activity in middle-aged us workers.

Objectives: This study was to examine whether psychosocial work characteristics such as job control, psychological job demands, and their combinations are associated with leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) in US workers.

Materials And Methods: 2019 workers (age range: 32 to 69) from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) II study (2004-2006) were chosen for this cross-sectional study. Job control and job demands were measured by standard questionnaire items.

Reduced vagal cardiac control variance in exhausted and high strain job subjects.

Objectives: This paper has two primary objectives. First, the paper proposes methodological strategies for analyzing multiscale vagal cardiac control based on the Stress Disequilibrium Theory (SDT) using high frequency power of heart rate variability (HFP) and short term variance of HFP. Second, the paper provides evidence of reduced vagal cardiac control range and variability in high strain job and exhausted subjects.

Sedentary work, low physical job demand, and obesity in US workers.

Background: Little is known about the role of low physical activity at work (sedentary work or low physical job demand) in the increasing prevalence of obesity of US workers.

Methods: This cross-sectional and secondary data analysis included 1,001 male and 1,018 female workers (age range: 32-69) from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) II study (2004-2006). Sedentary work and physical job demand were measured by questionnaire items.

Synergistic interaction effect between job control and social support at work on general psychological distress.

Purpose: Little is known about the interaction between job control and social support at work on common mental disorders. To examine whether there is a synergistic interaction effect between job control and social support at work on general psychological distress and whether it differs by the level of job demands.

Methods: About 1,940 male and female workers from the Malmö Shoulder and Neck Study were chosen for this cross-sectional study.

Psychosocial working conditions and exhaustion in a working population sample of Swedish middle-aged men and women.

Background: Exhaustion is a concept of interest for both occupational health research and stress-disease theory research. The aim of the present study was to explore associations between chronic stressors, in terms of psychosocial working conditions, and exhaustion in a Swedish middle-aged population sample.

Methods: A vocationally active population sample of the Malmö Shoulder and Neck Study cohort, comprising 2555 men and 2466 women between 45 and 64 years of age, was used.

The perception of work stressors is related to reduced parasympathetic activity.

Purpose: The aim was to examine the perception of work stressors in relation to ambulatory measures of heart rate variability (HRV).

Methods: Results are based on a sample of 653 healthy male workers aged 40-55 from the Belgian Physical Fitness Study conducted in 1976-1978. Data were collected by means of self-administered questionnaires and bio-clinical examinations.

Conflict between the work and family domains and exhaustion among vocationally active men and women.

Exhaustion is consistently found to be more prevalent in women than in men. Women suffer from job strain more often, which may constitute a partial explanation for this phenomenon, but experienced shortcomings in combining work and family demands may also contribute to ill health. The aim of this study was to investigate, and analyse by gender, how work-related and family-related factors, as well as the interface between them, i.

Cross-language differential item functioning of the job content questionnaire among European countries: the JACE study.

Background: Little is known about cross-language measurement equivalence of the job content questionnaire (JCQ) PURPOSE: The purposes of this study were to assess the extent of cross-language differential item functioning (DIF) of the 27 JCQ items in six languages (French, Dutch, Belgian-French, Belgian-Dutch (Flemish), Italian, and Swedish) from six European research centers and to test whether its effects on the scale-level mean comparisons among the centers were substantial or not.

Method: A partial gamma coefficient method was used for statistical DIF analyses where the Flemish JCQ was the reference for other language versions. Additionally, equivalence between the Flemish and Dutch translations was subjected to a judgmental review.

Sleeping problems as a risk factor for subsequent musculoskeletal pain and the role of job strain: results from a one-year follow-up of the Malmö Shoulder Neck Study Cohort.

Background: The role of sleeping problems in the causal pathway between job strain and musculoskeletal pain is not clear.

Purpose: To investigate the impact of sleeping problems and job strain on the one-year risk for neck, shoulder, and lumbar pain.

Method: A prospective study, using self-administered questionnaires, of a healthy cohort of 4,140 vocationally active persons ages 45-64, residing in the city of Malmo.

A cross-national study on the multidimensional characteristics of the five-item psychological demands scale of the Job Content Questionnaire.

Background: The five-item psychological demands scale of the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) has been assumed to be one-dimensional in practice.

Purpose: To examine whether the scale has sufficient internal consistency and external validity to be treated as a single scale, using the cross-national JCQ datasets from the United States, Korea, and Japan.

Method: Exploratory factor analyses with 22 JCQ items, confirmatory factor analyses with the five psychological demands items, and correlations analyses with mental health indexes.

Testing two methods to create comparable scale scores between the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) and JCQ-like questionnaires in the European JACE Study.

Background: Scale comparative properties of "JCQ-like" questionnaires with respect to the JCQ have been little known.

Purpose: Assessing validity and reliability of two methods for generating comparable scale scores between the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) and JCQ-like questionnaires in sub-populations of the large Job Stress, Absenteeism and Coronary Heart Disease European Cooperative (JACE) study: the Swedish version of Demand-Control Questionnaire (DCQ) and a transformed Multinational Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in Cardiovascular Disease Project (MONICA) questionnaire.

Method: A random population sample of all Malmo males and females aged 52-58 (n = 682) years was given a new test questionnaire with both instruments (the JCQ and the DCQ).

High job strain and ambulatory blood pressure in middle-aged men and women from the Belgian job stress study.

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess whether job strain is associated with 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure measurements within a subsample of the Belgian Job Stress Project (BELSTRESS) population.

Methods: A group of 89 middle-aged male and female workers perceiving high job strain and an equally large group of workers perceiving no high job strain wore an ambulatory blood pressure monitor for 24 hours on a regular working day.

Results: Mean ambulatory blood pressure at work, at home, and while asleep was significantly higher in workers with job strain as compared with others.

The social distribution of risk at work: acute injuries and physical assaults among healthcare workers working in a long-term care facility.

The roles of informal social ties in affecting healthcare workers' risk of injury and assault were investigated in a long-term care facility for the elderly in the US. The original hypothesis was that nurses and healthcare assistants who integrated more with their coworkers would have lower risk. A crude measure of familiarity and social integration with coworkers was constructed from staff attendance records.

Psychometric properties of the Korean version of the job content questionnaire: data from health care workers.

Objectives: To test the validity and reliability of selected scales, namely, decision latitude, psychological job demand, social support, job insecurity, and macro-level decision latitude from the Korean version of the job content questionnaire (K-JCQ), as part of a psychosocial epidemiological study among university hospital workers.

Methods: K-JCQ was developed by translation and back translation complying with the JCQ usage policy, and its psychometric properties were explored among 338 workers (290 females and 48 males) in a university hospital in Korea. Internal consistency was examined using Cronbach's alpha correlation coefficients.

The stress-disequilibrium theory: chronic disease development, low social control, and physiological de-regulation.

The Stress-Disequilibrium Theory is based on a new generalized analytic three-level model based on thermodynamics to describe the process of physiological risk development. This approach explains how low social control could cause chronic disease through chronic de-regulation of our highly integrated physiological systems. Could low external social control lead to low internal physiological control: i.

Injuries and assaults in a long-term psychiatric care facility: an epidemiologic study.

The objectives of this study were to document the high rates of acute injuries and physical assaults among nurses and certified nursing assistants working in long-term psychiatric care facilities and to identify risk factors for assaults and injuries to inform prevention strategies. A mixed-design cohort study was conducted. Acute injury and physical assault data were obtained from administrative records.