Work-related circumstances have consistently been found important for mental health. Yet, most research is variable-oriented, ignoring individual variations. This study used a complementary person-oriented approach to investigate associations between work-related psychosocial factors and health-related indicators among white-collar workers in a large Swedish public organization. The overall aim was to identify distinct cluster profiles of psychosocial work circumstances and examine differences in health-related indicators across these cluster profiles. Online questionnaires were distributed to all employees, with 1,692 volunteering anonymous participation. Measures included mostly single-items of psychosocial factors (autonomy, work demands, social support, and social climate), and health-related indicators (self-rated health, recovery from work, and work/life balance). Cluster analysis yielded four distinct cluster profiles: the supporting cluster profile with nearly 50% of employees; the challenging and the demanding cluster profiles, each including about one third of the employees; and the constraining cluster, the smallest group. Overall, the supporting cluster profile had the highest levels of self-rated health, recovery, and work/life balance, followed by the challenging and the demanding cluster profile. The constraining cluster profile exhibited the poorest health. Taken together, most employees had supporting psychosocial circumstances with opportunities to do a good job while maintaining long-term health, whereas other employees may face poor health over time. This underscores the need for tailored interventions to improve the psychosocial work environment for different groups. Although the cross-sectional design is a limitation, the person-oriented approach provides insights into the variability of work-related psychosocial circumstances, regardless of demographics, and their implications for organizational sustainability.

Background: During the COVID-19-pandemic, Swedish higher education institutions shifted to remote teaching to reduce contagion. Among the students, this shift may have involved mental health changes. Such changes in mental health may, in turn, influence academic success. Purpose: This longitudinal study investigated the effects of mental health changes on academic self-efficacy among university students in Sweden over the course of the pandemic. Method: Self-reports were collected through online questionnaires. Baseline questionnaires were distributed in May 2020 with follow-ups at 5-months and 10-months post baseline. The longitudinal sample included 2796 students (89,5% of baseline respondents). Taking a Bayesian approach, multilevel multinomial regressions were used to estimate effects, with adaptive intercepts for universities as well as respondents in the longitudinal models. Results: Reporting worse mental health at baseline, rather than no change, resulted in an observed higher odds of reporting worse academic self-efficacy rather than no change in academic self-efficacy at both follow-ups. Also, reporting a change to worse mental health, rather than no change, at the 5-month follow-up resulted in observed higher odds of reporting worse academic self-efficacy at the 10-month follow-up. A similar pattern was found for students reporting both positive and negative mental health changes, as compared to those reporting no mental health changes. Conclusions: These findings have implications for the development of easily accessible services that support mental health in order for students, particularly those who experience negative effects on their mental health, to keep up their studies in times of uncertainty.

With Sweden seeing increasing sick-leave figures due to mental disorders including exhaustion, particularly in the public sector and among women, the balancing of work and personal life spheres has received renewed attention. Yet, while employers can influence and manage organizational factors and the repercussions of these on the work environment with respect to factors promoting and hindering such a balance, possibilities to influence and manage the personal life spheres of employees are restricted. Still, with long-term sustainability being important for organizations, employers have an interest in employees maintaining long-term health. A key factor in this includes employee opportunities to balance work and personal life spheres over time. Thus, identifying work-related factors that promote and hinder such a balance is key. However, organizational resources for identifying such promoting and hindering factors are limited. This means that it is important to investigate possibilities to make use of existing data within organizations to identify such promoting and hindering factors, and particularly so in public sector organizations. This study focuses on a specific part of the public sector, namely regions. Regions are tasked with the responsibility to ascertain that its population has access to health care and public transport. Moreover, regions are involved in coordinating long-term development and in contributing to its cultural arena. While much research has targeted the health care sector and transport, including organizational and working conditions within these contexts, considerably less is known of the circumstances of the employees who are to enact the decisions of the governing bodies in a region. These employees typically hold a degree from higher education, can be considered administrative staff doing various types of digitized office work, and are key actors in the long-term management and planning relating to the conditions of health care, public transport, development, and culture. Considering this, the present study aimed at investigating how organizational and individual circumstances at work were related to the promotion and hindering of work/life balance among employees in one of the bigger regions in Sweden.

Organizational data covering employee self-reports from the systematic monitoring of the workplace and work environment were retrieved for three consecutive years. This included reports from both women and men, including both managers and employees, totalling around 4300 individuals (year 1: 1413 employees including 811 women and 143 managers; year 2: 1576 employees including 911 women and 161 managers; year 3: 1348 employees including 736 women and 149 managers). Since the successful systematic monitoring of the circumstances at work require the collaboration between different organizational levels, completing the questionnaire is considered as a work task to be completed by all employees. This means that the vast majority responded. To maintain confidentiality, the content of this questionnaire and the results were processed by an external company specializing in these processes. The questionnaire, which was administered online during the same season each year, covered about 50 statements about the organizational and psychosocial circumstances at work. Ratings were made along an 8-point response format ranging from (1) Do not agree at all to (8) Fully agree. In addition to work/life balance, autonomy, demands, competence, and support at organizational and individual levels were analyzed here. Besides descriptive statistics and initial group comparisons checking differences between years, women and men, as well as managers and subordinates, separate hierarchical regressions were carried out for each year. First, gender and position were added to the model while organizational circumstances were included in a second step. The third and final step included adding individual working conditions.

Group comparisons showed no consistent variations between women and men. However, managers had poorer work/life balance than the others. Despite adding significantly to the model, organizational autonomy, demands, competence, and support had no significant associations to work/life balance. However, individual level autonomy, demands, competence, and support were associated with work/life balance. In particular, having reasonable demands and getting support when needed were identified as promoting factors associated with better work/life balance.

Overall, there were no consistent differences in any of the study variables between women and men. Managers seemed to have higher autonomy, demands, and competence than non-managers, although there were slight variations between different study years. Importantly, the findings show that both promoting and hindering factors characterizing the work of the individual employee add beyond that of comparable organizational level factors to work/life balance. Although organizational level factors can be considered important in shaping the work of the individual, the findings seem reasonable in considering that the promoting and hindering factors of the work tasks of an individual employee are most likely to influence possibilities to balance work and private life spheres.

Background  This study explored eating disorders (ED) prevalences, comorbidity of ED with other mental disorders, and risk factors for ED among university students. ED included binge eating disorder (BED), bulimia nervosa (BN), or other specified feeding and eating disorders (OSFED).

Methods  A total of 3425 first-year university students in Sweden completed an online survey covering a range of criteria for psychiatric diagnoses, within the World Mental Health International College Student (WMH-ICS) initiative. Pearson’s χ² -tests were used to compare algorithm-based diagnostic prevalences for eating disorders and other comorbid psychiatric disorders between three groups: students with ED with or without other comorbid psychiatric disorders (A), students with psychiatric disorders but no ED comorbidity (B), and students with no psychiatric disorders (C). Multinomial logistic regression was used to calculate between-group comparisons of odds ratios for independent risk factors, where group B served as the reference group for comparisons with groups A and C.

Results  Of the total sample, 75% had at least one psychiatric disorder and 28% had at least one lifetime ED diagnosis. Students with ED (group A) reported higher prevalences for comorbid anxiety disorders, depression, suicidal behavior, and non-suicidal self-injury compared to students with psychiatric disorders but no ED (group B). Group A participants exhibited a higher risk of hazardous drinking, were more likely to have received medical treatment, and to identify as bisexual. Compared to group B, students with no psychiatric disorders (group C) were more likely to report better mental and physical health, but less likely to engage in hazardous drinking, and to have sought mental health treatment.

Conclusions  A large proportion of students with ED had additional psychiatric disorders, indicating that individuals with ED suffer from multiple mental health problems. It is crucial that student health services acquire competency to offer effective ED assessment and treatment.

This special issue of Economic and Industrial Democracy is dedicated to the contributions that Professor Magnus Sverke has made (to date) to Swedish and international research on working life. The timing of the special issue coincides with Professor Sverke approaching ‘normative’ retirement age, even if we do not know when he will officially retire. As has been shown in a wealth of earlier studies, the timing of retirement can be expected to be subject to complex decision making that may change over time (Sousa-Ribeiro et al., 2021). With this uncertainty regarding the timing of Magnus’s actual retirement, we take the opportunity to highlight and celebrate his many achievements and contributions to research and practice in work and organizational psychology in 2025. This year also marks the 30th anniversary of Magnus’s receiving his PhD in psychology, in 1995 – another good reason to take stock. Since Magnus is still actively conducting and publishing research and is expected to extend his career for a number of years, this special issue is a celebration of Magnus’s career so far.

Introduction: Prior research shows high levels of mental disorder among students in many countries, with potential for internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (ICBT) to improve mental health. Over 40% of young people in Europe pursue studies in higher education. We report mental disorder diagnostic prevalences for students in Sweden, and preliminary results from a transdiagnostic ICBT trial. Methods: Students at 15 higher education institutions in Sweden answered an online cross-sectional survey between 2020 and 2023 as part of the World Mental Health International College Student (WMH-ICS) initiative. A sample of 17 948 students provided sufficient data for calculation of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 5th edition (DSM-5) diagnoses for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Panic Disorder (PD), Bipolar Disorder (BD, any), Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), Substance Use Disorder (SUD), and any mental disorder for 30-day, 12-month and lifetime periods. About 1200 participants will have been randomized by summer 2025 to guided ICBT, unguided ICBT, or waitlist control crossed over at six months to unguided ICBT. Results: The proportion of respondents (69.4% women, 25.5 mean age, range 18 to 36) fulfilling criteria for any 30-day, 12-month or lifetime diagnosis was 25.2%, 39.3% and 44.5%, respectively. Odds of mental disorders were higher for several sub-groups based on gender, age, sexual orientation and post-pandemic survey responses. Preliminary post-treatment ICBT trial outcomes for depression and anxiety will be presented. Conclusions: The prevalence findings augment existing concern over student mental health. ICBT may offer a way forward for augmenting student mental health treatment resources.

Purpose: Job insecurity characterizes academic work, with potential risks for the health, well-being, and personal lives of faculty. Notwithstanding, faculty with job insecurity experiences may still find academia conducive to pursuing personal fulfilment. As faculty experiences of psychological well-being may be coloured by insecurity, this study sought to qualitatively investigate the ways in which experiences of insecurity and psychological well-being co-occur.

Methods: This study followed a questionnaire study of a representative sample of faculty in Swedish academia and their job insecurity perceptions, inviting the most insecure to participate. The participant group included 19 faculty from nine public Swedish higher education institutions. Transcripts of the semi-structured interviews were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, guided by the six theoretical dimensions of psychological well-being.

Results: Two themes were developed: 1) Staying afloat?, and 2) I’m not yet where I’m supposed to be. These themes elucidate faculty experiences of managing their current work (and personal) situations, and reveal how faculty orient themselves in relation to their futures, pasts and presents.

Conclusions: The findings demonstrate how experiences of insecurity co-exist with psychological well-being in constraining and enhancing faculty well-being. This reveals how psychological well-being involves a dynamic process of negotiation, especially during transitional periods.

Aim: The COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions posed challenges to people’s private and work lives. This included a rapid shift from on-site to remote work for many working adults in Sweden and internationally, and limited opportunities for indoor social and leisure activities. This involved risks for increased loneliness and social isolation, particularly among those mainly working remotely. In this context, nature visits may mitigate loneliness. This study adds to existing research in investigating whether a higher degree of remote work during COVID-19 was related to increased loneliness and whether nature visits mitigated loneliness, especially for those who mainly worked remotely. Subject and methods: The sample comprised a subsample of respondents to the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health 2020 (n = 984). Nature-related habits (NRH) were measured using self-reported frequency of visits to various natural environments. The effect of remote work, NRH, and time on loneliness (before – during COVID-19) was analyzed using linear mixed models while controlling for confounders. Results: Loneliness levels during COVID-19 were highest and increased the most compared to before the pandemic among individuals with the greatest degree of working remotely. Engaging daily in NRH was associated with lower loneliness levels, particularly among individuals mostly working remotely. This was observed in a three-way interaction effect between remote work, NRH, and time on loneliness. Conclusion: Daily nature visits may protect against loneliness during and beyond crises like COVID-19, particularly for those mainly working remotely. Policies preserving and facilitating access to nature may promote resilience during and beyond crises like COVID-19.

Background: Addressing the effects of non-compliance with health-related recommendations in pandemics is needed for informed decision-making. This longitudinal study investigated the effects of non-compliance on mental health and academic self-efficacy among university students in Sweden. Methods: Baseline assessments were conducted in May 2020, with follow-ups after 5 and 10 months. Students (n = 3123) from 19 universities completed online questionnaires covering compliance, mental health, and academic self-efficacy. Effects of non-compliance were estimated using causal inference and multilevel multinomial regression. Results: Non-compliant students constituted a minority, but their proportion increased over time. Regarding mental health and academic self-efficacy, few differences were observed between compliant and non-compliant students. When differences were identified, non-compliant students experienced fewer negative effects on mental health and academic self-efficacy than compliant students. Conclusion: The findings may suggest that non-compliance may have involved a trade-off between increased individual freedom and mitigating negative outcomes. Addressing the research gap on non-compliance effects is crucial for informed decision-making and promoting the common good. This may guide strategies balancing individual autonomy and collective well-being during future pandemics. Pre-registration: Center for Open Science (OSF), https://accounts.osf.io/login?service=https://osf.io/37dhm/.

Research suggests that the work domain is important for facilitating individual well-being as people tend to spend a significant amount of time at work. Among faculty in academia, the work domain may be essential to consider given the increasing concerns about faculty mental health related to increasing workloads and responsibilities. Therefore, it is pertinent to investigate various personal and work-related factors in association with well-being and ill-being. Not only are such investigations important for understanding faculty fulfillment, they may also provide key insights needed to ensure quality in teaching and research in higher education. This study utilized questionnaire data, collected in 2021, from a representative sample of faculty with doctoral degrees across Swedish academia (n = 2661, 47 percent women, average age = 50). Personal and work-related variables included age, sex, civil status, children, employment contract, managerial responsibilities, and organizational tenure. These were modeled as predictors of well-being, including hedonic and eudaimonic measures, in addition to ill-being measures, specifically exhaustion and depressive symptoms. Four multiple hierarchical regressions revealed significant relationships between personal and work-related factors and measures of well-being and ill-being. Age and civil status were associated with well-being and ill-being, and among work-related factors, a permanent contract was associated with lower exhaustion and depressive symptoms, whereas possessing managerial responsibilities was linked to higher hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Overall, the study findings reveal that personal and work-related factors may differentially influence faculty well-being and ill-being. These insights have the potential to inform organizational efforts to enhance faculty well-being.