Work, work-life conflict and health in an industrial work environment.
BACKGROUND
Work-life conflict has been poorly studied as a cause of ill-health in occupational medicine.


OBJECTIVE
To study associations between physical and psychosocial working conditions, including work-life conflict on the one hand and general, physical and mental health outcomes on the other.


METHODS
Cross-sectional data were used from an employee survey among the workforces of four medium-sized and large companies in Switzerland. Physical work factors included five demands and exposures such as heavy loads, repetitive work and poor posture. Psychosocial factors included 14 demands and limited resources such as time pressure, overtime, monotonous work, job insecurity, low job autonomy, low social support and work-life conflict. Health outcomes studied were self-rated health, sickness absence, musculoskeletal disorders, sleep disorders, stress and burnout.


RESULTS
There was a response rate of 49%; 2014 employees participated. All adverse working conditions were positively associated with several poor health outcomes in both men and women. After mutual adjustment for all work factors and additional covariates, only a few, mainly psychosocial work factors remained significant as risk factors for health. Work-life conflict, a largely neglected work-related psychosocial factor in occupational medicine, turned out to be the only factor that was significantly and strongly associated with all studied health outcomes and was consistently found to be the strongest or second strongest of all the studied risk factors.


CONCLUSIONS
Even in an industrial work environment, psychosocial work factors, and particularly work-life conflict, play a key role and need to be taken into consideration in research and workplace health promotion.
Division of Public and Organizational Health, Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Zurich, Hirschengraben 84, Zurich 8001, Switzerland.
O
O
Hämmig
G F
GF
Bauer
D000328:Adult; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007221:Industry; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009140:Musculoskeletal Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D009787:Occupational Medicine; D009790:Occupations; D012307:Risk Factors; D057566:Self Report; D020178:Sleep Disorders, Circadian Rhythm / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D012944:Social Support; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013557:Switzerland / Q000453:epidemiology; D016526:Workload / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017132:Workplace / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
Burnout; musculoskeletal disorders; physical and psychosocial work factors; self-rated health; sickness absence; sleep disorders; stress; work-life conflict.