CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 245Workplace Health and Well-beingEmployment and Welfare StudiesJob Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior

Effort-reward imbalance, procedural injustice and relational injustice as psychosocial predictors of health: complementary or redundant models?

Open access
Kivimäki, Mika, Vahtera, Jussi, Elovainio, Marko, Virtanen, Marianna, Siegrist, Johannes·2007·Occupational and Environmental Medicine
DOI 10.1136/oem.2006.031310PMC PMC2078405
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Objective: Effort-reward imbalance at work is an established psychosocial risk factor but there are also newer conceptualisations, such as procedural injustice (decisions at work lack consistency, openness and input from all affected parties) and relational injustice (problems in considerate and fair treatment of employees by supervisors). The authors examined whether procedural injustice and relational injustice are associated with employee health in addition to, and in combination with, effort-reward imbalance. Methods: Prospective survey data from two cohorts related to public-sector employees: the 10-Town study (n = 18 066 (78% women, age range 19–62) and the Finnish Hospital Personnel study (n = 4833, 89% women, age range 20–60). Self-rated poor health, minor psychiatric morbidity and doctor-diagnosed depression were assessed at baseline (2000–2) and at follow-up (2004). To determine incident morbidity, baseline cases were excluded. Results: In multivariate models including age, sex, occupational status and all three psychosocial factors as predictors, high effort-reward imbalance and either high procedural injustice or high relational injustice were associated with increased morbidity at follow-up in both cohorts. After combining procedural and relational injustice into a single measure of organisational injustice, high effort-reward imbalance and high injustice were both independently associated with health. For all outcome measures, a combination of high effort-reward imbalance and high organisational injustice was related to a greater health risk than high effort-reward imbalance or injustice alone. Conclusion: Evidence from two independent occupational cohorts suggests that procedural and relational components of injustice, as a combined index, and effort-reward imbalance are complementary risk factors.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1136/oem.2006.031310

Cites

29 of 29 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Moderate-quality evidence that effort-reward imbalance increases the incidence of stress-related disorders, with a pooled OR of 1.91 (95% CI 1.70 to 2.15).

    “Six cohort studies16 18 19 24 25 demonstrate that there is moderate-quality evidence that effort-reward imbalance increases the incidence of SRD, with a pooled OR of 1.91 (95% CI 1.70 to 2.15) (see table 3 and figure 2).”

    From Work-related psychosocial risk factors for stress-related mental disorders: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis (2020) · cites this paper as [19]

    The Effects on health section reports that effort–reward imbalance was associated with incident minor psychiatric morbidity and doctor-diagnosed depression in two occupational cohorts. The paper reports cohort-specific odds ratios, not a six-study pooled OR of 1.91 (95% CI 1.70 to 2.15), and it does not grade the evidence as moderate quality. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Moderate-quality evidence that low procedural justice increases the incidence of stress-related disorders, with a pooled OR of 1.73 (95% CI 1.61 to 1.86).

    “Five cohort studies3 19 22 25 demonstrate that there is moderate-quality evidence that low procedural justice with a pooled OR of 1.73 (95% CI 1.61 to 1.86) and low relational justice with a pooled OR of 1.55 (95%CI 1.44 to 1.67) increase the incidence of SRD (see table 3 and figure 3).”

    From Work-related psychosocial risk factors for stress-related mental disorders: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis (2020) · cites this paper as [19]

    The paper’s Effects on health section and Tables 2–3 report associations between procedural injustice and incident health outcomes, including GHQ caseness, in two cohorts. They do not report a pooled OR of 1.73 (95% CI 1.61–1.86) across five studies or grade the evidence as moderate quality; those are claims about the citing paper’s synthesis, not results of this source. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Moderate-quality evidence that low relational justice increases the incidence of stress-related disorders, with a pooled OR of 1.55 (95% CI 1.44 to 1.67).

    “Five cohort studies3 19 22 25 demonstrate that there is moderate-quality evidence that low procedural justice with a pooled OR of 1.73 (95% CI 1.61 to 1.86) and low relational justice with a pooled OR of 1.55 (95%CI 1.44 to 1.67) increase the incidence of SRD (see table 3 and figure 3).”

    From Work-related psychosocial risk factors for stress-related mental disorders: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis (2020) · cites this paper as [19]

    The Effects on health section reports that procedural or relational injustice was associated with increased risk of health outcomes at follow-up, including GHQ caseness and doctor-diagnosed depression. This paper is a relevant cohort study, but it does not report the five-study pooled OR of 1.55 (95% CI 1.44–1.67) or grade the evidence as moderate quality; those are conclusions of the citing paper's synthesis. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Six studies also controlled for other work-related psychosocial risk factors in various models.

    “Six studies also controlled for other work-related psychosocial risk factors in various models.3 19 20 22 27”

    From Work-related psychosocial risk factors for stress-related mental disorders: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis (2020) · cites this paper as [19]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. [8]8. Greenberg J, Cropanzano R, eds. Advances in organization justice: Stanford University Press, 2001.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Kivimäki, M., Vahtera, J., Elovainio, M., Virtanen, M., & Siegrist, J.
Affiliations
Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FI)
ORCID
Venue
Occupational and Environmental Medicine
Publisher
BMJ
Published
2007-01-25
Volume
64
Issue
10
Pages
659-665
ISSN
  • 0007-1072 (ISSN-L)
  • 1351-0711
  • 1470-7926
DOI
10.1136/oem.2006.031310
PMC
PMC2078405
OpenAlex
W2087147136
Cited by
245
References
29
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 25
FWCI
30.16
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Occupational and Environmental Medicine (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
  • HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Workplace Health and Well-being
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Employment and Welfare Studies
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior
Keywords
effort-reward imbalance, procedural injustice, psychosocial risk factors, employee health, psychiatric morbidity, depression, public sector employees, occupational health
MeSH terms
Adult, Mental Disorders, Europe, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Health Status, Health Surveys, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Models, Psychological, Occupational Diseases, Prospective Studies, Reward, Social Justice, Cohort Studies, Causality, Multivariate Analysis, Odds Ratio, Workload, Age Distribution, Sex Distribution

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review