Depression and Working Conditions: Review of Current Research

This article reviews research during the last decade (2000-2010) that studied evidence of associations between psychosocial labor factors and the emergence of depressive episodes in longitudinal studies. A systematic review of prospective cohort studies was performed which included psychosocial factors at work such as exposure (independent variable) and depression as an outcome (dependent variable). The search was focused on PubMed and the inclusion criteria were prospective cohort studies that reported their results using relative risk (RR) or odds ratio (OR). Papers reported in previous reviews were excluded. Based on these criteria, eight studies were selected. The trend, which has been observed for two decades, was confirmed: heavy work demands, low control over work rhythm and processes, poor social support, imbalance between effort and reward, as well as perceived unfair treatment were significant and consistent predictors of future depressive episodes. However, the variability in these results makes it necessary to recognize the difficulties of addressing psychosocial variables, and therefore, the importance of not neglecting theoretical and epistemological reflection.