8261239 Psychosocial measures in occupational epidemiology

<h3>Objective</h3> 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’. <h3>Material and Methods</h3> 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. <h3>Results</h3> 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. <h3>Conclusion</h3> 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.