Stressful psychosocial work environment, poor sleep, and depressive symptoms among primary school teachers

espanolIntroduccion. Examinamos las asociaciones y contribuciones proporcionales de los tres modelos validados de entorno psicosocial de trabajo estresante (tension laboral, desequilibrio esfuerzo-recompensa, injusticia organizacional) con respecto a su potencial para explicar sintomas depresivos entre profesores de educacion primaria. Adicionalmente, comprobamos el rol mediador de diferentes tipos de problemas de sueno. Metodo. Los participantes fueron 76 profesores de primaria finlandeses. Las asociaciones entre los tres factores psicosociales relacionados con el trabajo, dificultades de sueno y sintomas depresivos fueron examinadas mediante analisis de regresion multiple y analisis de mediacion por bootstrap, ajustados por genero y edad. Analisis de importancia relativa fueron llevados a cabo para examinar la contribucion proporcional de los factores psicosociales relacionados con el trabajo sobre los sintomas depresivos. Resultados. Ambos modelos de desequilibrio esfuerzo-recompensa y tension laboral mostraron asociaciones positivas con sintomas depresivos, mientras que la asociacion entre el modelo de injusticia organizacional y los sintomas depresivos no fue estadisticamente significativa. Cuando las contribuciones proporcionales de los tres modelos fueron analizadas simultaneamente, el de desequilibrio esfuerzo-recompensa se mostro como el predictor mas importante. De acuerdo con los analisis de mediacion por bootstrap, los problemas de sueno en terminos de sueno no reparador explicaron el 18% de la asociacion entre la tension laboral y los sintomas depresivos, y el 11% de la asociacion entre el desequilibrio esfuerzo-recompensa y los sintomas depresivos. EnglishIntroduction. We examined the associations and proportionate contributions of three wellvalidated models of stressful psychosocial work environment (job strain, effort-reward imbalance, and organizational injustice) in explaining depressive symptoms among primary school teachers. In addition, we tested the mediating role of different types of sleep problems. Method. The participants included 76 Finnish primary school teachers. The associations between the three work-related psychosocial factors, sleep problems, and depressive symptoms were examined using multiple linear regression analyses and bootstrap mediation analyses, adjusting for gender and age. Relative weight analyses were performed to examine the proportionate contributions of the work-related psychosocial factors on depressive symptoms. Results. Both effort-reward imbalance and job strain showed positive associations with depressive symptoms, whereas the association between organizational injustice and depressive symptoms was not significant. When the proportionate contributions of job strain, effortreward imbalance, and organizational injustice on depressive symptoms were analysed simultaneously, effort-reward imbalance was found to be the most important predictor. According to bootstrap mediation analyses, sleep problems in terms of nonrestorative sleep explained 18% of the association between job strain and depressive symptoms and 11% of the association between effort-reward imbalance and depressive symptoms. Conclusion. Our findings suggest that, for primary school teachers, particularly effort-reward imbalance but also job strain may be risk factors for depressive symptoms, and that this association might be partly explained by impaired sleep. Adjusting work demands and increasing the rewarding aspects of teachers’ work may enhance sleep quality and reduce depressive symptoms in primary school teachers’ occupation.