Stress Research Institute at Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden.
School of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Eastern Finland, Finland.
Scand J Public Health. 2023 Jul;51(5):664-672. doi: 10.1177/14034948231160633. Epub 2023 Mar 24.
Individuals' lives have been substantially affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to describe changes in psychosocial work environment and mental health and to investigate associations between job insecurity and mental ill-health in relation to changes in other psychosocial work factors, loneliness and financial worries.
A sub-sample of individuals from the eighth Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health answered a web-based survey in early 2021 about current and pandemic-related changes in health, health behaviours, work and private life. We investigated participants working before the pandemic (=1231) in relation to standardised measures on depression, anxiety and loneliness, together with psychosocial work factors, in descriptive and logistic regression analyses.
While 9% reached the clinical threshold for depression and 6% for anxiety, more than a third felt more worried, lonelier or in a low mood since the start of the pandemic. Two per cent had been dismissed from their jobs, but 16% experienced workplace downsizings. Conditioning on socio-demographic factors and prior mental-health problems, the 8% experiencing reduced job security during the pandemic had a higher risk of anxiety, but not of depression, compared to employees with unaltered or increased job security. Loneliness and other psychosocial work factors explained more of the association than objective measures of job insecurity and financial worries.
Reduced job security during the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have increased the risk of anxiety among individuals with a strong labour market attachment, primarily via loneliness and other psychosocial work factors. This illustrates the potentially far-reaching effects of the pandemic on mental health in the working population.
COVID-19 大流行对个人生活产生了重大影响。我们旨在描述心理社会工作环境和心理健康的变化，并探讨工作不安全感与心理健康不良与其他心理社会工作因素、孤独感和财务担忧的变化之间的关系。
第八次瑞典职业健康纵向调查的一个子样本在 2021 年初通过网络调查回答了有关健康、健康行为、工作和私人生活方面的当前和大流行相关变化的问题。我们调查了在大流行前（=1231）工作的参与者，使用标准化的抑郁、焦虑和孤独感测量指标，以及心理社会工作因素，进行描述性和逻辑回归分析。
尽管有 9%的人达到了抑郁的临床阈值，6%的人达到了焦虑的临床阈值，但自大流行开始以来，超过三分之一的人感到更加担忧、孤独或情绪低落。有 2%的人被解雇，但有 16%的人经历了工作场所裁员。在考虑到社会人口因素和先前的心理健康问题后，与工作安全感未改变或增加的员工相比，在大流行期间工作安全感降低的 8%的人患焦虑症的风险更高，但患抑郁症的风险没有增加。孤独感和其他心理社会工作因素比工作不安全感和财务担忧的客观测量指标更能解释这种关联。
COVID-19 大流行期间工作安全感降低似乎增加了那些劳动力市场联系紧密的人的焦虑风险，主要是通过孤独感和其他心理社会工作因素。这说明了大流行对工作人群心理健康的潜在深远影响。
