The influence of and change in procedural justice on self-rated health trajectories: Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health results.

OBJECTIVES

Procedural justice perceptions are shown to be associated with minor psychiatric disorders, long sickness absence spells, and poor self-rated health, but previous studies have rarely considered how changes in procedural justice influence changes in health.

METHODS

Data from four consecutive biennial waves of the Swedish Longitudinal Survey of Health (SLOSH) (N=5854) were used to examine trajectories of self-rated health. Adjusting for age, sex, socioeconomic position, and marital status, we studied the predictive power of change in procedural justice perceptions using individual growth curve models within a multilevel framework.

RESULTS

The results show that self-rated health trajectories slowly decline over time. The rate of change was influenced by age and sex, with older people and women showing a slower rate. After adjusting for age, sex, socioeconomic position, and marital status, procedural justice was significantly associated with self-rated health. Also, improvements in procedural justice were associated with improvements in self-rated health. Additionally, a reverse relationship with and change in self-rated health predicting procedural justice was found.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings support the idea that procedural justice at work is a crucial aspect of the psychosocial work environment and that changes towards more procedural justice could influence self-rated health positively. The reciprocal association of procedural justice and self-rated health warrants further research.