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A poor psychosocial safety climate (PSC) increases teleworker vulnerability to suicide ideation, according to a new Japanese study.

1,988 participants were surveyed in a cross-sectional design.

Key findings:

·        “poor PSC had a direct effect on an increase in suicidal ideation, even after controlling for task-level occupational factors in both teleworkers and nonteleworkers”

·        “the association between PSC and suicidal ideation was more pronounced among teleworkers than nonteleworkers”

·        “These results imply the importance of PSC for suicide prevention, especially under teleworking arrangements”

·        Suicide ideation prevalence was higher among individuals working in the high-risk PSC group – 44% versus those in a low-risk PSC – 23%

·        They say “Working in the high-risk PSC condition could have thwarted feelings of belongingness, which is theoretically thought as one of the direct antecedents of suicidal ideation and has moderately strong evidence with suicide”

·        Also, “Work stress theories particularly highlight the importance of job design and task level factors (ie, quantitative job overload, job control, supervisor support, and coworker support) and psychological health”

·        That PSC was correlated with suicide ideation even after controlling for a raft of task-level workplace factors “provides empirical support for PSC theory and the importance of organization-level factors to prevent suicidal behaviors”

·        “given the absence of workplace in-person interaction along with telework, teleworkers may need more social interaction to prevent the deterioration of their mental health”

·        And further, working in a high-risk PSC that hinders feelings of being protected by the organisation “might strongly compromise teleworkers’ feelings of belongingness”

·        Finally, they argue that “Another way to interpret the findings is that telework per se does not necessarily make worker vulnerable to suicide ideation as long as organizations maintain good PSC”

Also, I need to re-check the stats, but it appears that the risk of suicide ideation is *lower* among low-risk teleworking workers compared to non-teleworking (but this doesn’t demonstrate causality, of course).

Several limitations were present. Cross-sectional nature (so causality isn’t clear), the online survey sample, and the kinda *unique* nature of Japanese cultural norms, which may also play some role.

Ref: Kikunaga, K., Nakata, A., Tondokoro, T., & Dollard, M. (2023). Poor psychosocial safety climate increases teleworker vulnerability to suicidal ideation. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 10-1097.

Study link: https://doi.org/10.1097/JOM.0000000000003122

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LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/benhutchinson2_a-poor-psychosocial-safety-climate-psc-activity-7282870699663245314-LloA?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop