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Workplace
Original research
Influence of changing working conditions on exit from paid employment among workers with a chronic disease
  1. Jolinda L D Schram1,
  2. Suzan J W Robroek1,
  3. Patricia Ots2,
  4. Sandra Brouwer2,
  5. Alex Burdorf1,
  6. Sander K R van Zon2,
  7. Karen M Oude Hengel1,3
  1. 1 Department of Public Health, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
  2. 2 Department of Health Sciences, Community & Occupational Medicine, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
  3. 3 Work, Health & Technology, Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research TNO, Leiden, The Netherlands
  1. Correspondence to Dr Karen M Oude Hengel, Department of Public Health, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam 3000 CA, The Netherlands; k.oudehengel{at}erasmusmc.nl

Abstract

Objectives To investigate the relation between changes in working conditions and exit from paid employment among workers with a chronic disease.

Methods Six waves from the longitudinal Study on Transitions in Employment, Ability and Motivation (2010–2016), enriched with tax-based employment information from Statistics Netherlands (2011–2017), were available for 4820 chronically ill workers aged 45–63 years (mean 55.3 years, SD 5.1). A change in working conditions (physical workload, psychological job demands, job autonomy, emotional job demands and social support) was defined as an increase or decrease between two consecutive waves of at least one SD. Discrete-time survival models with repeated measurements were used to estimate the relative risk (RR) of a change in working conditions on exiting paid employment in the following year compared with no change and consecutive favourable working conditions.

Results A favourable change in physical workload lowered the risk to exit paid employment (RR 0.46, 95% CI 0.22 to 0.94). An adverse change in psychosocial working conditions, especially a decrease in social support (RR 2.07, 95% CI 1.52 to 2.81), increased the likelihood to exit paid employment. In contrast, a favourable change in psychological job demands increased the risk to exit paid employment (RR 1.57, 95% CI 1.09 to 2.24). Multiple adverse changes increased the risk to exit paid employment up to six times (RR 6.06, 95% CI 2.83 to 12.98).

Conclusions Changes in working conditions among workers with chronic diseases influence exit from paid employment. Ensuring that working conditions can be adapted to the needs of workers with a chronic disease may help to extend working life.

  • workload
  • physical work
  • occupational health practice
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/oemed-2019-106383

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors JLDS, SJWR, AB and KMOH designed the model and the analytical framework. JLDS analysed the data and performed the analyses. After the first analysis the analytical model was discussed by JLDS, SJWR, PO, SB, AB, SKRvZ and KMOH and improved. JLDS drafted the manuscript with input from all authors. The final version has been approved by all authors.

    • Funding This study was funded by ZonMw (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001826) and grant number: 531001411.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data availability statement Data are stored at Statistics Netherlands. Data are available on reasonable request, following the guidelines of the Statistics Netherlands.