0000000000003957
AUTHOR
Jussi Vahtera
showing 10 related works from this author
Sense of coherence as a mediator between hostility and health
2002
Abstract Objective: We proposed and tested a model in which low sense of coherence (SOC) was hypothesized to underlie the association between hostility and health problems. Methods: Structural equation modeling was based on cross-lagged 7-year follow-up data, relating to five measurement points in 433 female municipal employees. Results: The mediated model fitted well with the data. After adjustment for baseline characteristics, hostility was associated with increased risk of health problems, as indicated by records of sickness absences and poor self-rated health. Incorporating SOC into the model attenuated this association by 33–50%, depending on the indicator of health. The mediated effec…
The Role of Work Group in Individual Sickness Absence Behavior
2008
The purpose of our two-year follow-up study was to examine the effect of the social components of the work group, such as group absence norms and cohesion, on sickness absence behavior among individuals with varying attitudes toward work attendance. The social components were measured using a questionnaire survey, and data on sickness absence behavior were collected from the employers' records. The study population consisted of 19,306 Finnish municipal employees working in 1,847 groups (78% women). Multilevel Poisson regression modeling was applied. The direct effects of work group characteristics on sickness absence were mostly insignificant. In contrast, both of the social components of …
Organizational justice at school and its associations with pupils' psychosocial school environment, health, and wellbeing.
2011
It has been shown that the psychosocial environment perceived by school staff is associated with children's academic performance and wellbeing. In this study we examined the associations between organizational justice (procedural and relational justice) as reported by school staff and pupils' perceptions of their school environment, health problems, academic performance, and absenteeism. We combined data from two surveys: for the staff (the Finnish Public Sector Study, n = 1946) and pupils (the Finnish school health promotion survey, n = 11,781 boys and 12,842 girls) of 136 secondary schools, collected during 2004-2005. Multilevel cumulative logistic regression analyses showed that after ad…
Contribution of parental and school personnel smoking to health risk behaviours among Finnish adolescents.
2009
Abstract Background This study compared parental smoking with school personnel smoking in relation to adolescents' smoking behaviours, alcohol use, and illicit drug use. Methods A cross-sectional survey for 24,379 adolescents was linked to a survey for 1946 school employees in 136 Finnish schools in 2004-2005. Surveys included smoking prevalence reported by school staff, adolescents' reports of school staff and parental smoking, adolescents' own smoking behaviours, alcohol use, and illicit drug use. Multilevel analyses were adjusted for individual and school-level confounding factors. Results Parental smoking was associated with all health risk behaviours among both sexes (risk range 1.39 t…
Role clarity, fairness, and organizational climate as predictors of sickness absence: a prospective study in the private sector.
2005
Aims: The majority of the research on the effects of the psychosocial work environment on sickness absenteeism has focused on components of job strain and social support among public sector employees without stratification by socioeconomic status. The authors examined less-studied work-related psychosocial predictors of sickness absence in the private sector by socioeconomic status. Methods: Questionnaire data on psychosocial factors at work were used to predict the rates of recorded short (1 - 3 days), long (4 - 21 days), and very long (over 21 days) sickness absences among 3,850 white- and blue-collar male and female employees in a large-scale enterprise. Multivariate Poisson regression …
Mental health and hostility as predictors of temporary employment: Evidence from two prospective studies
2005
We used two studies to examine whether mental health and hostility predicted temporary employment. Study 1 involved a cohort of 970 Finnish hospital employees (102 men, 868 women) who had temporary job contracts at baseline. After adjustment for demographics, organisational tenure and part-time work status, doctor-diagnosed psychiatric disorder predicted continuing in temporary employment instead of receiving a permanent job by the end of the 2-year follow-up. A higher level of hostility was also associated with temporary employment, but only among employees in low socioeconomic positions. In Study 2, anxiety and aggressive behaviour were measured in a cohort of 226 Finnish school children …
Organizational justice, sickness absence and employee age
2013
Purpose – The aim of this paper is to study age-related differences in how perceptions of two forms of organizational justice, i.e. procedural and interactional justice, are related to short (i.e. non-certified) spells and long (i.e. medically certified) spells of sickness absence. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted a study on a large sample of Finnish public sector employees (n=37,324), in which they matched employees' 2004 survey data with their records-based sick absences in 2005 and 2006. Findings – The results suggest that age moderates the association between perceptions of procedural justice and long sickness absences after controlling for gender, tenure, occupationa…
Sense of coherence and health: evidence from two cross-lagged longitudinal samples
2000
We explored the stability of sense of coherence (SOC) and the relationship between SOC and health in two cross-lagged longitudinal samples by using structural equation modeling. In Study 1, comprising 577 municipal male and female employees, SOC was found to be stable in both sexes. In women, SOC significantly predicted sickness absences in the 4-year follow-up period. A low SOC, but not a high SOC, was associated with health prospects. Surprisingly, SOC did not influence sickness absences among men. Study 2 further tested the relationship between SOC and health in 320 male technical designers. Although SOC was cross-sectionally associated with psychological and somatic health complaints, i…
Job characteristics, physical and psychological symptoms, and social support as antecedents of sickness absence among men and women in the private in…
2003
Most longitudinal studies on the relationship between psychosocial health resources and risks, and the employees' subsequent sickness absences have been conducted in the public sector. The purpose of this study was to find out psychosocial antecedents of sickness absenteeism in the private industrial sector. The effects of job characteristics (job autonomy and job complexity), physical and psychological symptoms, and social support (from coworkers and supervisors) on sickness absenteeism were investigated. The number of long (4-21 days) and very long (>21 days) sickness absence episodes of 3895 persons (76% men and 24% women, mean age 44 years) was obtained from the health registers of a mu…
Staff reports of psychosocial climate at school and adolescents' health, truancy and health education in Finland.
2009
Background: Psychosocial climate at school reported by school personnel may be related to pupils’ reports of being heard at school, depression, physical and psychological symptoms, truancy and received health education. Methods: Cross-sectional study combining data from two independent surveys conducted between 2004 and 2005 in 136 public schools in Finland. The pupil sample comprised 11 583 boys and 12 706 girls from the eighth and ninth grades of lower secondary school and first and second grades of upper secondary school. A personnel survey ( n = 1946) was used to measure psychosocial climate indexed by trust and opportunity for participation, support for innovation, orientation towards…