Petra Lindfors

Self-rated Health and Allostatic Load in Women Working in Two Occupational Sectors

This study set out to investigate how biological dysregulation, in terms of allostatic load (AL), relates to self-rated health (SRH) in women. Data on SRH and 12 biomarkers used to assess AL were available for 241 employees from the health care sector and 98 employees from the IT/media sector. In line with the hypothesis, results showed that a poor SRH, along with occupational sector, age and education, were significantly associated with a high AL, particularly for those working within the health care sector. This association between a poor SRH and AL, suggests a link between SRH and biological dysregulation.

Job Insecurity as a Predictor of Physiological Indicators of Health in Healthy Working Women: An Extension of Previous Research

Job insecurity has been linked to different negative outcomes, such as negative work attitudes and health problems, with most studies including self-reported outcomes. Extending earlier research, the present study includes both self-reported and physiological indicators of health and sets out to investigate whether higher levels of job insecurity are related to higher levels of allostatic load, higher levels of morning cortisol, more physician-diagnosed symptoms of ill-health and poorer self-rated health. The study also investigated whether self-rated health mediated the relation between job insecurity and physiological outcomes. This was cross-sectionally studied in a cohort of Swedish women who participated in a large-scale longitudinal study focusing on life span development and adaptation. The results showed that job insecurity was related to self-rated health and morning cortisol, and, contrary to expectations, that job insecurity was unrelated to allostatic load and physician ratings, both directly and indirectly. The results indicate that, in healthy working women, job insecurity may be less detrimental to long-term physiological health than originally hypothesized.

Trends in Self-Rated Health Among Nurses: A 4-Year Longitudinal Study on the Transition From Nursing Education to Working Life

For nurses, the transition from higher education to working life involves several types of changes and seems to be a major contributing cause of distress and, consequently, ill health on a longer term basis. The aim of this study was to longitudinally monitor the development of self-rated health (SRH) in nurses, starting from the last semester at the university with subsequent follow-ups when the nurses had entered working life. The Longitudinal Analyses of Nurses Education and working life is an ongoing nationwide longitudinal project focusing on mapping health and career development in nurses in Sweden. SRH is one of the most widely used single-item measures of perceived health status with a well-established predictive ability on future health outcomes, including morbidity and mortality. This study found a small but significant and continuous decline in SRH among nurses during 3 years of follow-ups, starting from their last semester of nursing education and continuing 3 years into their working life. The most pronounced decline in SRH seems to occur in the transition between student life and working life and is most explicit among the youngest nurses. However, the long-term effect on SRH when entering into working life seems to be more pronounced among the older nurses.

Derailed Organizational Interventions for Stress and Well-Being

In the Nordic countries, working hour reductions have been introduced as a possible occupational health intervention. We evaluated the effects of a working hour reduction from 37 to 30 hours a week among 100 employees within older people’s care. The outcome evaluation was broad, including health check-ups and extensive questionnaires covering work climate, work-home balance, health-related measures, well-being and health behaviors. The results showed no improvements during the one-year project period, which raises the question whether the results are due to failure in implementation or theory. This chapter asks what is needed for considering a failure as a theory failure, that is, a default program theory in that the activities fail to bring the desired effects. It is suggested that the case described here may be one such example. In order to facilitate the separation of theory failure from implementation failure, we underscore the importance of program theory, also called theory of change or logic models. By scrutinizing the program theory before implementing an intervention, a critical evaluation of the mechanisms linking the intervention to various outcomes can be made. Also, the program theory is helpful for forming testable hypothesis that allows variation in process factors to be tested.

Effects of Workplace-based Physical Exercise Interventions on Cost Associated with Sickness Absence and on Productivity

This chapter aims to provide a research based framework for physical exercise interventions at work, present a case study of physical exercise in dentistry and outline a conceptual model specifying mechanisms linking the more well-known effect of physical exercise on individual outcomes to organisational outcomes. Specifically, the case is used to illustrate how physical exercise can influence productivity and organisational costs related to sickness absence.