Work Design and Mental Health: Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction

This study examines how work design influences employee mental health and job satisfaction within the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) framework, incorpo-rating a biopsychosocial perspective. Data were collected from 306 employees (228 women, 78 men) using the Polish adaptations of the Work Design Question-naire (WDQ; Hauk, 2014) and the Satisfaction with Job Scale (SWJS; Zalewska, 2003), alongside the Symptom Checklist-27-plus (SCL-27-plus; Hardt, 2008; Kuncewicz et al., 2014) for mental health outcomes. Correlation and regression analyses revealed that ergonomic conditions, autonomy, and feedback were the strongest predictors of job satisfaction. Mediation analyses further indicated that job satisfaction fully mediated the relationship between ergonomics and both depressive and pain symptoms, while effects on vegetative, agoraphobic, and sociophobic symptoms were weaker and largely nonsignificant. These findings highlight the pivotal role of well-structured and supportive work environments – particularly physical conditions – in fostering job satisfaction and protecting mental health. The results provide practical guidance for organizations aiming to enhance employee well-being, emphasizing ergonomics, autonomy, feedback, and social support as key resources in contemporary work design.