• Andreas Seidler, Melanie Schubert, Alice Freiberg, Stephanie Drössler, Felix S Hussenoeder, Ines Conrad, Steffi Riedel-Heller, and Karla Romero Starke.
• Institute and Policlinic of Occupational and Social Medicine (IPAS), Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden,Dresden, Germany; Institute of Social Medicine, Occupational Health and Public Health (ISAP), Faculty of Medicine,Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany.
• Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2022 Oct 21; 119 (42): 709715709-715.

BackgroundThe purpose of this study is to investigate the exposure-risk relationship between psychosocial occupational stress and mental illness.MethodsWe conducted a systematic review with meta-analyses as an update of a systematic review published in 2014. The study protocol was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42020170032). Literature searches were carried out in the MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Embase databases. All procedural steps were performed independently by two reviewers; discordances were solved by consensus. All of the included full texts were subject to a methodological appraisal. Certainty of evidence was determined with the GRADE procedure.ResultsThe pooled risk of depression was found to be approximately doubled in workers exposed to high job strain, which is defined as high work demands combined with low job control (effect estimate [EE] = 1.99, 95% CI [1.68; 2.35], heterogeneity [I2] = 24.7%, n = 8). In particular, high work demands are associated with incident depression (ES = 13.8 [1.19; 1.61], I2 = 69.0%, n = 9) and with incident anxiety disorder (ES = 1.79 [1.44; 2.23], I2 = 48.1%, n = 5). There were only a small number of methodologically adequate studies available on burnout, somatoform disorders, suicidal ideation, and suicide. Thus, no pooled risk estimates were calculated, although some individual studies showed a considerably increased risk.ConclusionPsychosocial occupational stress is clearly associated with depression and anxiety disorders.

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