Elsevier

Public Health

Volume 147, June 2017, Pages 72-76
Public Health

Original Research
Psychosocial job stressors and thoughts about suicide among males: a cross-sectional study from the first wave of the Ten to Men cohort

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2017.02.003Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Psychosocial job stressors are associated with a large range of health outcomes.

  • There is a lack of research on job stressors and male suicidal ideation.

  • Low job control, high demands and job insecurity were risk factors.

  • Workplace suicide prevention needs to address adverse working conditions.

Abstract

Objectives

Psychosocial job stressors are known to be associated with poor mental health. This research seeks to assess the relationship between psychosocial working conditions and suicidal ideation using a large dataset of Australian males.

Study design

Cross-sectional study.

Methods

Data from wave 1 of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health (Ten to Men) was used to assess the association between suicidal ideation in the past two weeks and psychosocial working conditions using logistic regression. The sample included 11,052 working males. The exposures included self-reported low job control, high job demands, job insecurity and low fairness of pay. We controlled for relevant confounders.

Results

In multivariable analysis, persons who were exposed to low job control (odds ratio [OR] 1.15, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.05–1.26, P = 0.003), job insecurity (OR 1.69, 95% CI 1.44–1.99, P < 0.001) and unfair pay (OR 1.19, 95% CI 1.11–1.27, P < 0.001) reported elevated odds of thoughts about suicide. Males employed casually or on fixed-term contracts reported higher odds of suicidal ideation (OR 1.32, 95% CI 1.09–1.61, P = 0.005).

Conclusion

Psychosocial job stressors are highly prevalent in the working population and workplace suicide prevention efforts should aim to address these as possible risk factors.

Introduction

In most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, the rate of suicide among males is three to four times higher than that of women.1 While there are numerous complex reasons for the greater susceptibility of males to suicide compared to females, evidence suggests risk factors such as their greater likelihood of using more lethal means, and lower likelihood of seeking help for mental health problems as being two important influences.2

In addition to their overall higher rates of suicide, research suggests that males who die by suicide are more sensitive to external economic stressors than their female counterparts. For example, a large body of ecological research shows that the male rate of suicide in a nation correlates with the unemployment rate.3, 4 The relevance of employment as a potential stressor is also demonstrated in research showing that male suicide rates are higher among those in lower skilled occupations compared to those in higher skilled occupations.5

As it stands, there is limited gender specific research on whether males who experience psychosocial job stressors also report a higher frequency of suicidal thoughts, which is often considered an important risk factor for future suicidal behaviours and death, as well as being associated with mental disorders (e.g., depression and anxiety disorders).6 In the current study, we sought to extend investigation of this issue using baseline data from a large cohort of 11,600 Australian males to answer the research question: is exposure to psychosocial job stressors associated with higher odds of suicidal ideation among males? This is an important research topic considering the large number of working age males who lose their lives to suicide.1

Section snippets

Data source

We used data from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health (Ten to Men). Ten to Men is a national longitudinal study of boys and men aged 10–55 years at baseline. The study aims to collect data on a range of life domains, including demographic and socio-economic characteristics, physical, mental health and well-being, health behaviours, and use and knowledge of health services. Sampling, recruitment and data collection methods are described elsewhere.7 For this analysis males 18 years

Results

As can be seen in Table 1, those who recently had thoughts about suicide were more likely to report greater unfairness of pay, low job control, high job demands and job insecurity.

Table 2 displays the univariable and multivariable associations (where all variables are simultaneously adjusted for each another). In multivariable analysis, persons who were exposed to low job control (odds ratio [OR] 1.15, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.05–1.26, P = 0.003), job insecurity (OR 1.69, 95% CI

Discussion

The observed associations between exposure to three of the four job stressors measured and suicidal ideation are consistent with the growing evidence linking job stressors with suicidal ideation.10, 11 These study findings should also be viewed in the context of studies on death by suicide among males, which have also identified job stressors as key risk factor for suicide.12, 13, 14

There may be a number of explanations for the relationship between poor working conditions and suicidal ideation.

Acknowledgements

The research on which this paper is based on was conducted as part of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health by the University of Melbourne. We are grateful to the Australian Government Department of Health for funding and to the boys and men who provided survey data. We would also like to thank Suzanne Mavoa for her statistical guidance and support.

Authors' contributions

AM conceived the article, conducted analysis and wrote drafts of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the analytic approach and

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