Mini-symposium: Psychosocial work factors and health: A field in the intersection between disciplines
Monday 6 October 2025, 14.00 – 15.30 Spark
Moderated by Emma Brulin
Psychosocial work factors and health: A field in the intersection between disciplines
Emma Brulin (presenter)
Abstract
Objective: To discuss and problematize research on psychosocial work factors and health from an intersectional perspective
Results: Research on the psychosocial work environment has evolved significantly over the past century—from being a peripheral element of industrial psychology to becoming a well-established field of psychology — Work and Organizational Psychology (WOP) and Occupational Health Psychology (OHP). The early foundations were laid in the 1930s through the Hawthorne studies, which revealed the importance of social dynamics in the workplace. During the 1960s and 1970s, Herzberg’s two-factor theory and Bertil Gardell emphasized psychosocial work factors. Later in the 1980s, Karasek and Theorell’s job demand–control model gave the field theoretical depth and the relationship between work, stress, and health gained increasing attention. In the 1980s, psychosocial work exposure started to emerge in occupational epidemiology, where scholars sought to empirically quantify the impact of work-related psychosocial factors on population health. While much epidemiological research utilizes clearly defined and clinically assessed exposure and outcome measures, psychosocial occupational epidemiology faces many challenges. One problem is the lack of stable conceptual precision that has a bearing on robust measures of exposures with cut-off levels to distinguish between harmless and harmful exposure. While we need stable exposure assessments, the organisation of work has changed substantially and is continually and rapidly changing, raising concerns about whether instruments developed in the 1980s are still valid and will be valid in the coming years.
Conclusion: Researcher investigating psychosocial exposures risks ending up in between, neither “good enough” for WOP/OHP, nor Psychosocial Occupational Epidemiology. This becomes evident when publishing research and for policy recommendations. To tackle problems, we advocate for increased interdisciplinary research discussions and collaborations, as well as for interdisciplinary research to attain a more prominent status in the research community.
Psychosocial measures in occupational epidemiology
Reiner Rugulies (presenter)
Abstract
Objective: To give an overview of aims and approaches for measuring exposure to adverse psychosocial work environment conditions, with a particular focus on differences in “Psychosocial Occupational Epidemiology” versus “Work and Organizational Psychology/Occupational Health Psychology”.
Material and Methods: A narrative and non-systematic review of reviews and meta-analyses on the association between psychosocial work environment exposures and risk of development of physical and mental health conditions.
Results: Exposure to adverse psychosocial work environment conditions can be measured by (i) self-reported working conditions analysed at the individual level; (ii) self-reported working conditions aggregated at the work group level; (iii) self-reported working conditions aggregated at the job group level (job exposure matrices); (iv) direct observations of working conditions by trained observers; (v) indirect indicators of working conditions, retrieved from administrative data sources. Each approach has its specific strengths and limitations, thus, none of the approaches can be regarded as a “gold standard”. Researchers in “Psychosocial Occupational Epidemiology” are often focused on methods that help to reduce reporting bias. Researchers in “Work and Organizational Psychology/Occupational Health Psychology” are often focused on the detailed documentation of the psychometric properties of the exposure measure and the link of the exposure measure to theory.
Conclusion: Measuring psychosocial work environment conditions is a humbling endeavour with no perfect solutions. Triangulating different approaches with complementing strengths and weaknesses may be a promising, but not easy, strategy for moving the field forward.
Aspects of conceptual precision in in epidemiological research on psychosocial working conditions and health
Hermann Burr(presenter)
Abstract
Background: The possible impact on health of psychosocial working conditions can be better understood when psychosocial demands and resources are well defined. Useful definitions of these factors would also ease the understanding of issues regarding their measurement, i.e. validity and reliability.
Method: Two types of examples are taken up, on the one hand the concepts job demand control models and the effort reward imbalance models, on the other hand single factors such as quantitative demands and quality of leadership. Through these examples we take up issues regarding conceptual definitions and measurements of psychosocial working conditions.
Results: In social epidemiological research, we find that most psychosocial models and single factors are poorly defined.
Discussion: The conceptual precision of models and single factors dealing with psychosocial working conditions should be improved. Research funding – being scarce – has had a focus on empirical results, i.e. the association between psychosocial factors and health, and not on theory and methods. The emerging emphasis on also interventions highlight this conceptual deficit even more.
The Janus face of burnout: Mild complaints versus disorder
Wilmar Schaufeli (presenter)
Abstract
Burnout has two faces. On one side are mild, subclinical symptoms such as fatigue, irritability, and concentration problems—common among employees and requiring preventive action. On the other side is clinical burnout: a severe, disabling condition that requires diagnosis and treatment.
Most epidemiological research focuses on mild symptoms, often using inappropriate tools. This has led to inconsistent prevalence rates—ranging, for example, from 0% to 85% in studies on physician burnout (1). Clinical burnout remains under-researched due to the absence of universally accepted diagnostic criteria. Although burnout is listed in ICD-11 as an “occupational phenomenon,” it is not formally recognized as a medical disorder.
In this presentation, I pursue two aims. First, I introduce the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT), a validated self-report instrument with established clinical cut-offs. Cross-national research using the BAT shows that rates of mild burnout symptoms vary considerably—from 6.6% in Finland to 25.7% in Japan.
Second, I propose diagnostic criteria for clinical burnout. These criteria build on national experiences in Sweden and the Netherlands. Sweden introduced diagnostic criteria for Stress-related Exhaustion Disorder (SED) in 2003. The Netherlands developed criteria for stress-related disorders, including burnout, in 2000. By combining these approaches, I propose a three-phase diagnostic model that distinguishes (1) early risk, (2) advanced risk, and (3) clinical burnout. This framework helps to bridge the gap between mild complaints and diagnosable disorder.
Using the BAT for identifying early symptoms and applying consistent diagnostic criteria for clinical burnout can improve the accuracy of epidemiological research and support more effective prevention and intervention strategies.
Rotenstein LS Torre M Ramos MA Rosales RC Guille C Sen S Mata DA . Prevalence of burnout among physicians a systematic review. JAMA 2018: 320, 1131–50.