CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 919Workplace Health and Well-beingEmployment and Welfare StudiesOccupational Health and Burnout

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 41 of the 41 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Psychosocial factors at work and risk of depression: a systematic review of the epidemiological evidence

Bonde, J P E·2008·Occupational and Environmental Medicine
DOI 10.1136/oem.2007.038430
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Objectives: Major depression is a leading cause of psychiatric morbidity and may be influenced by psychosocial factors in the workplace, although evidence so far remains circumstantial. This paper reviews follow-up studies addressing the risk of major depression and depressive symptoms relative to psychosocial stressors in the working environment and evaluates the evidence for causality. Method: Follow-up studies were identified by a systematic Medline search combining search terms for the outcome and measures of job-related psychosocial factors. The quality of the studies was evaluated using 22 criteria related to their potential for bias and confounding. Results: Sixteen company or population-based studies including some 63 000 employees were identified. Validated multi-item scales were used to measure perceived psychosocial stressors in most of the studies. Major depression was defined by clinical criteria in seven studies and by symptom scales in another seven. The follow-up period ranged from 1 to 13 years. The prevalence of depressive disorder varied substantially, suggesting a high degree of study heterogeneity. The adjusted relative risk for onset of a major depressive episode according to job stressors ranged from 0.5 to 1.5 in 44 of 61 reported associations with various psychosocial factor dimensions. Associations were strongest and most consistent for job strain defined as high demand and low decision latitude among men. Most studies shared common limitations such as lack of independent measures of exposure and outcome and potential confounding. Although a meta-analysis would technically be possible, heterogeneity across studies evidenced by variation in the prevalence of depression made this unfeasible. Conclusion: This review provides consistent findings that perception of adverse psychosocial factors in the workplace is related to an elevated risk of subsequent depressive symptoms or major depressive episode; however, methodological limitations preclude causal inference. Studies implementing objective measures of job stressors or independent outcome ascertainment are warranted.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1136/oem.2007.038430

Cites

41 of 41 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

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?

Citations

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Show all 39 references

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Lepore SJ . Measurement of chronic stressors. In: Cohen S Kessler R C Gordon L U , eds. Measuring stress. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997:102–20.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 201–300 of 913

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Bonde, J. P. E.
Affiliations
Aarhus University Hospital (DK)
Corresponding author
Bonde, J P E
ORCID
Bonde, J P E
Venue
Occupational and Environmental Medicine
Publisher
BMJ
Published
2008-04-16
Volume
65
Issue
7
Pages
438-445
ISSN
  • 0007-1072 (ISSN-L)
  • 1351-0711
  • 1470-7926
DOI
10.1136/oem.2007.038430
OpenAlex
W2149581099
Cited by
919
References
39
Citations by year
2026: 17 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 47 · 2021: 48 · 2020: 62 · 2019: 57 · 2018: 59 · 2017: 70 · 2016: 62 · 2015: 79 · 2014: 85 · 2013: 69 · 2012: 67
FWCI
6.25
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Occupational and Environmental Medicine (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Workplace Health and Well-being
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Employment and Welfare Studies
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Occupational Health and Burnout
Keywords
major depressive disorder, psychosocial stressors, occupational stress, job strain, depressive symptoms, workplace mental health, job demands, job control, causality, confounding, follow-up study
MeSH terms
Decision Making, Depression, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Humans, Male, Occupational Diseases, Occupations, Psychology, Risk, Stress, Psychological, Odds Ratio

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