Assessment of the impact of lifestyle and psychosocial working conditions on older employees’ work ability

Abstract

Objective. The purpose of this article was to assess the impact of selected elements of lifestyle, psychosocial working conditions and general mental health on older employees’ ability to work. Methods. Employees (N = 1067) aged 50–65 years (M 54.8, SD 3.95) responded to a questionnaire on demographics, lifestyle characteristics, general mental health (general health questionnaire), psychosocial job characteristics (job content questionnaire) and work ability (work ability index [WAI]). A logistic regression model was used to assess the impact of the selected factors on work ability. Results. Older employees were characterized by good (44.4%) and moderate (36.4%) work ability. The average WAI scores were significantly higher among employees who did not smoke, consumed the recommended daily intake of vegetables, drank enough water, ate breakfast every morning, cut down on sweets and were on a vegetarian diet. Good physical (no sick leave) and mental health, high level of job control, low job insecurity and use of over-the-counter drugs were found to be the strongest predictors of WAI scores. Conclusions. The results of the research indicate that most of the determinants of work ability identified at work are impacted, thus giving the opportunity to conduct some occupational health and preventive programmes in the workplace.

Keywords:

• work ability
• work ability index
• lifestyle
• psychosocial working conditions
• ageing employees

Acknowledgements

This article is based on the results of a research task carried out within the scope of the third stage of the National Programme ‘Improvement of safety and working conditions’ partly supported in 2014–2016 – within the scope of research and development – by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education/National Centre for Research and Development. The Central Institute for Labour Protection – National Research Institute (CIOP-PIB) was the Programme’s main coordinator.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.