Although long working hours are common in working populations, little is known about the effect of long working hours on mental health.
We examined the association between long working hours and the ...onset of depressive and anxiety symptoms in middle-aged employees. Participants were 2960 full-time employees aged 44 to 66 years (2248 men, 712 women) from the prospective Whitehall II cohort study of British civil servants. Working hours, anxiety and depressive symptoms, and covariates were measured at baseline (1997-1999) followed by two subsequent measurements of depressive and anxiety symptoms (2001 and 2002-2004).
In a prospective analysis of participants with no depressive (n=2549) or anxiety symptoms (n=2618) at baseline, Cox proportional hazard analysis adjusted for baseline covariates showed a 1.66-fold 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.06-2.61 risk of depressive symptoms and a 1.74-fold (95% CI 1.15-2.61) risk of anxiety symptoms among employees working more than 55 h/week compared with employees working 35-40 h/week. Sex-stratified analysis showed an excess risk of depression and anxiety associated with long working hours among women hazard ratios (HRs) 2.67 (95% CI 1.07-6.68) and 2.84 (95% CI 1.27-6.34) respectively but not men 1.30 (0.77-2.19) and 1.43 (0.89-2.30).
Working long hours is a risk factor for the development of depressive and anxiety symptoms in women.
To investigate the relationship between working hours and the risk of depression according to household income level.
We used the data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. ...The information on working hours was obtained from the questionnaire, and depression was assessed by The Patient Health Questionnaire-9. After stratifying by household income level, the risk of depression for long working hour group (more than or equal to 52 hours a week), compared with the 30 to 51 working hour group as a reference, were calculated using multiple logistic regression.
It was found that long working hours associated with high risk for depression in the group with the highest income, but not in the group with the lowest income.
The relationship between long working hours and the risk of depression varied by household income level.
The “work-style reform bill” has been passed into law and for physicians will take effect in 2024. We examined the current work conditions of surgeons at a core local hospital and evaluated possible ...strategies to promote work-style reform. At our hospital, the average overtime per surgeon was 650 hours a year.However, younger rotating physicians sent from universities worked 1,220 hours of overtime, about 2.6 times more than senior full-time surgeons. We must consider the field of specialty and age to evaluate the working hours of physicians. “Work-style reform” often places emphasis on shortening and limiting work hours, but for a “true reform” it is important to analyze factors in each work environment and to develop a strategy to reduce work load.Multidisciplinary work sharing and task shifting are thought to be effective.
This study aimed to investigate the relationship between long working hours and chronic kidney disease (CKD) according to diabetic status.
Twelve thousand seven hundred three full-time employees ...without diabetes and 2136 with diabetes were included in this study. Participants were grouped according to working hours: ≤40, 41 to 52, and >52 h/week. Multiple logistic regression was used to evaluate the association between working hours and CKD prevalence.
Participants with diabetes who worked 41 to 52 h/week showed 1.85 times higher odds of CKD (95% CI 1.15-2.96; P = 0.0112) compared with those who worked ≤40 h/week after adjusting for covariates. An interaction between diabetes and long working hours was observed (P for interaction = 0.0212) in the model.
Long working hours are associated with CKD in participants with diabetes. An interaction between long working hours and diabetes leading to CKD development may exist.
Aim
We aimed to grasp the actual working hours of Japanese obstetricians and gynecologists (OB/GYN doctors) as accurately as possible, using the same method of the Ministry of Health, Labour, and ...Welfare (MHLW).
Methods
The time study targeted OB/GYN doctors working at 10 universities nationwide including Niigata University and 21 institutions which take a role of perinatal care in Niigata prefecture. Working hours per week were calculated based on the following categories: regular and overtime work inside the hospital, work outside the hospital, self‐improvement, education, research, and others. Data on weekly working hours were converted to yearly data for analyses.
Results
A time study of 10 universities nationwide revealed that 30% of doctors work overtime for more than 1860 h even if they do not include on‐call shifts in their working hours. In 21 institutions in Niigata, physicians in Niigata University worked more overtime than other hospitals. It became clear that community health care was supported by dispatching physicians working at university. Furthermore, the results of simulations predicted the pessimistic situation of perinatal medical care in Niigata.
Conclusions
Our study showed the possibility to exist much more OB/GYN doctors who work more than 1860 h of overtime work per year than the data presented by the MHLW based on nation‐wide survey in 2019. The fact that the working hours at the side jobs had a great influence on the increase in overtime work of physicians in University was the same result as the report of MHLW published in 2021.
Although researchers have argued that long work hours have been shown to threaten individual health, lead to work-family conflict, and reduce job performance, the effect of overtime work on ...social-related outcomes has received little attention. Based on the framework of relative deprivation, we attempt to address this important issue by exploring whether, why, and when individuals' overtime work influences their social attitudes. By using the data of 400 Chinese employees from the China Labor-Force Dynamics Survey (CLD), we found that overtime work was associated with a low level of subjective social status and social inclusion. In addition, we found that the time type of overtime work (work overtime on weekdays or on weekends and holidays) has a moderating effect on the relationship between overtime work and social inclusion. That is, employees who work overtime on weekdays are unlikely to have a sense of social inclusion. Furthermore, the negative relationship between overtime work and subjective social status was stronger at a low level of fairness rather than a high level of fairness. In contrast, the negative relationship between overtime work and social inclusion was stronger at a high level of fairness rather than a low level of fairness. These findings highlight the critical role of overtime work in social life and also provide novel insights into social intervention aimed at the happiness and harmony of a society.
Long working hours are detrimental to physical and mental health. However, the association between long working hours and psychosomatic symptoms have remained controversial, possibly because of the ...existence of mediators between working hours and psychosomatic stress responses. We hypothesized that lifestyle habits, regarding sleep and mealtimes, act as mediators, and analyzed the associations between long working hours, sleep duration, mealtime regularity, and psychosomatic stress responses in office workers.
From April 2017 to March 2018, an online cross-sectional survey regarding overtime work hours, work-related stress, sleep, and eating habits was conducted with employees of 17 companies located in Tokyo, Japan. Answers were obtained from 3559 employees, and 3100 provided written consent for the academic use of their answers, and were included in the analysis. A path analysis was conducted to assess the effect of overtime work on psychosomatic stress via shortened sleep or irregular mealtimes.
Overtime work hours had no direct effect on psychosomatic stress responses and depressive symptoms. However, overtime work hours affected sleep duration and the regularity of mealtimes. The effects of overtime work hours on psychosomatic stress responses and depressive symptoms were completely mediated by sleep duration and the regularity of mealtimes.
Long working hours do not affect mental health directly; however, shortened sleep duration and irregular mealtimes mediate the effect of long working hours on psychosomatic stress responses and depressive symptoms.
Parental self-efficacy beliefs develop over time. Most research, however, has focused mainly on the trajectories and predictors of trajectories of maternal self-efficacy, while little is known about ...those of paternal self-efficacy. This study examined the change in paternal self-efficacy for educational involvement during children's elementary school period, analyzing whether the change is influenced by fathers' long working hours (i.e., work hours on workdays and work hours on nonworkdays) and fathers' perceptions of time and energy. Data from 1,684 Chinese fathers of fourth grade children were collected every half year for two-and-a-half consecutive years. The results of a latent growth curve analysis revealed that paternal self-efficacy for educational involvement increased over the elementary school period. Fathers' working hours on nonworkdays were negatively associated with the initial level of paternal self-efficacy for educational involvement, but this negative effect was nonsignificant after fathers' perceived time and energy were added to the final model. Fathers' perceived time and energy were positively associated with the initial level of paternal self-efficacy for educational involvement and negatively associated with the growth rate of paternal self-efficacy for educational involvement. The findings advance the theory of parental self-efficacy, underlining the need to consider fathers' perceived time and energy to understand changes in paternal self-efficacy for educational involvement.
Long working hours and overwork are growing public health concerns in the Western-Pacific region. We explored the relationship between working hours and smoking behaviors of Korean workers.
This ...study included 284 782 observations (50 508 workers) from four nationwide cohort studies in Korea. Using generalized estimating equations, we estimated the associations of working hours with current smoking status, smoking initiation, and smoking cessation within each cohort. Cohort-specific estimates were combined through random-effect meta-analysis. Effect sizes were presented as odds ratios (OR) and 95 confidence intervals (CI).
The overall smoking prevalence was 26.8% within the cohorts. The adjusted OR (95% CI) of the association between working hours and current smoking were 1.01 (0.94-1.08) for <35 hours/week, 1.04 (1.01-1.09) for 41-48 hours/week, 1.06 (1.01-1.10) for 49-54 hours/week, and 1.07 (1.04-1.10) for ≥55 hours/week compared with 35-40 hours/week. The adjusted OR (95% CI) of the association between working hours and smoking cessation in the follow-up were 0.93 (0.85-1.02) for <35 hours/week, 0.89 (0.83-0.96) for 41-48 hours/week, 0.87 (0.81-0.95) for 48-54 hours/week, and 0.91 (0.85-0.98) for ≥55 hours/week compared with 35-40 hours/week. No clear associations were observed between working hours and smoking initiation.
Long working hours are associated with high current smoking risk and reduced likelihood of smoking cessation among Korean workers. Policy interventions are required to promote smoking cessation and reduce excess overwork for individuals experiencing long working hours.
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