Demand-specific work ability, poor health and working conditions in middle-aged full-time employees

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

We investigated the prevalence of reduced demand-specific work ability, its association with age, gender, education, poor health, and working conditions, and the interaction between poor health and working conditions regarding reduced demand-specific work ability. We used cross-sectional questionnaire data from 3381 full-time employees responding to questions about vocational education, job demands and social support (working conditions), musculoskeletal pain (MSP) and major depression (MD) (poor health) and seven questions about difficulty managing different job demands (reduced demand-specific work ability). Reduced demand-specific work ability varied from 9% to 19% among the 46-year old and from 11% to 21% among the 56-year old. Age was associated with two, gender with four, and education with all measures of reduced demand-specific work ability. MSP was associated with four and MD was associated with six measures of reduced demand-specific work ability. We found no interaction between working conditions and poor health regarding reduced demand-specific work ability.
Original languageEnglish
JournalApplied Ergonomics
Volume45
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)1174–1180
Number of pages7
ISSN0003-6870
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2014

ID: 104434286