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Zuelke AE, Roehr S, Schroeter ML, et al. Are social conflicts at work associated with depressive symptomatology? Results from the population-based LIFE-Adult-Study. J Occup Med Toxicol. 2020;15:1doi: 10.1186/s12995-020-0253-x.
Zuelke, A. E., Roehr, S., Schroeter, M. L., Witte, A. V., Hinz, A., Engel, C., Enzenbach, C., Thiery, J., Loeffler, M., Villringer, A., & Riedel-Heller, S. G. (2020). Are social conflicts at work associated with depressive symptomatology? Results from the population-based LIFE-Adult-Study. Journal of occupational medicine and toxicology (London, England), 151. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12995-020-0253-x
Zuelke, Andrea E, et al. "Are social conflicts at work associated with depressive symptomatology? Results from the population-based LIFE-Adult-Study." Journal of occupational medicine and toxicology (London, England) vol. 15 (2020): 1. doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12995-020-0253-x
Zuelke AE, Roehr S, Schroeter ML, Witte AV, Hinz A, Engel C, Enzenbach C, Thiery J, Loeffler M, Villringer A, Riedel-Heller SG. Are social conflicts at work associated with depressive symptomatology? Results from the population-based LIFE-Adult-Study. J Occup Med Toxicol. 2020 Feb 12;15:1. doi: 10.1186/s12995-020-0253-x. eCollection 2020. PMID: 32082403; PMCID: PMC7017627.
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J Occup Med Toxicol. 2020 Feb 12;15:1. doi: 10.1186/s12995-020-0253-x. eCollection 2020.

Are social conflicts at work associated with depressive symptomatology? Results from the population-based LIFE-Adult-Study.

Journal of occupational medicine and toxicology (London, England)

Andrea E Zuelke, Susanne Roehr, Matthias L Schroeter, A Veronica Witte, Andreas Hinz, Christoph Engel, Cornelia Enzenbach, Joachim Thiery, Markus Loeffler, Arno Villringer, Steffi G Riedel-Heller

Affiliations

  1. 1Institute of Social Medicine, Occupational Health and Public Health (ISAP), Medical Faculty, University of Leipzig, Philipp-Rosenthal-Str. 55, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
  2. 2Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
  3. 3University Hospital Leipzig, Day Clinic for Cognitive Neurology, Leipzig, Germany.
  4. 4Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
  5. 5Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Epidemiology (IMISE), University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
  6. 6Institute of Laboratory Medicine, Clinical Chemistry and Molecular Diagnostics (ILM), University Hospital Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.

PMID: 32082403 PMCID: PMC7017627 DOI: 10.1186/s12995-020-0253-x

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Psychosocial stressors in the workplace can be detrimental to mental health. Conflicts at work, e.g. aggression, hostility or threats from coworkers, supervisors or customers, can be considered a psychosocial stressor, possibly increasing risk for depressive symptoms. Existing studies, however, differ in the assessment of social conflicts, i.e. as individual- or job-level characteristics. Here, we investigated the association between conflicts at work assessed as objective job characteristics, and depressive symptomatology, using data from a large population-based sample. Additionally, we investigated gender differences and the impact of personality traits and social resources.

METHODS: We used data from the population-based LIFE-Adult-Study from Leipzig, Germany. Information on conflicts at work, assessed as job characteristics, were drawn from the Occupational Information Network, depressive symptoms were assessed via the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Multilevel linear regression models with individuals and occupations as levels of analysis were applied to investigate the association between conflicts at work and depressive symptoms.

RESULTS: Our sample included 2164 employed adults (age: 18-65 years, mean: 49.3, SD: 7.9) in 65 occupations. No association between conflicts s at work and depressive symptomatology was found (men: b = - 0.14;

CONCLUSION: Conflicts at work, assessed as objective job characteristics, were not associated with depressive symptoms. Possible links between interpersonal conflict and impaired mental health might rather be explained by subjective perceptions of social stressors and individual coping styles.

© The Author(s). 2020.

Keywords: CES-D; Depressive symptoms; Mental health; Multilevel model; O*NET; Psychosocial work environment; Social conflict

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interestsThe authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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