SynthesisBMC public health2012
Comparison of alternative versions of the job demand-control scales in 17 European cohort studies: the IPD-Work consortium.
Synthesis in BMC public health, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 81 papers, 14 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
81 citing papers in PubMed, 14 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The demands-control-support work stress model and risk of ischemic heart disease: causal inference based on observational epidemiology.Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health · 2026Pooled it
- Cognitive stimulation in the workplace, plasma proteins, and risk of dementia: three analyses of population cohort studies.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2021Pooled it
- Effort-Reward Imbalance at Work and Incident Coronary Heart Disease: A Multicohort Study of 90,164 Individuals.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2017Pooled it
- Job strain as a risk factor for clinical depression: systematic review and meta-analysis with additional individual participant data.Psychological medicine · 2017Pooled it
- Job strain as a risk factor for type 2 diabetes: a pooled analysis of 124,808 men and women.Diabetes care · 2014Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Job strain and the risk of inflammatory bowel diseases: individual-participant meta-analysis of 95,000 men and women.PloS one · 2014Pooled it
- Job strain and health-related lifestyle: findings from an individual-participant meta-analysis of 118,000 working adults.American journal of public health · 2013Pooled it
- Associations of job strain and lifestyle risk factors with risk of coronary artery disease: a meta-analysis of individual participant data.CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne · 2013Pooled it
- Work stress and risk of cancer: meta-analysis of 5700 incident cancer events in 116,000 European men and women.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2013Pooled it
- Job strain and cardiovascular disease risk factors: meta-analysis of individual-participant data from 47,000 men and women.PloS one · 2013Pooled it
- Job strain as a risk factor for leisure-time physical inactivity: an individual-participant meta-analysis of up to 170,000 men and women: the IPD-Work Consortium.American journal of epidemiology · 2012Pooled it
- Job strain as a risk factor for coronary heart disease: a collaborative meta-analysis of individual participant data.Lancet (London, England) · 2012Pooled it
- Job strain and alcohol intake: a collaborative meta-analysis of individual-participant data from 140,000 men and women.PloS one · 2012Pooled it
- The Role of Executive Function in the Effectiveness of Multi-Component Interventions Targeting Physical Activity Behavior in Office Workers.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Trial
- Trial
- Work-related psychosocial factors and working life expectancy among Finnish public sector employees aged 50 years or older.Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health · 2026Article
- Changes in hair cortisol during retirement transition: the Finnish retirement and aging study.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Concurrent changes in sleep and cognitive function during retirement transition: the Finnish retirement and aging study.European journal of ageing · 2025Article
- Ethically challenging situations in eldercare: A cross-sectional study.Nursing ethics · 2025Article
21 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
24 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundJob strain (i.e., high job demands combined with low job control) is a frequently used indicator of harmful work stress, but studies have often used partial versions of the complete multi-item job demands and control scales. Understanding whether the different instruments assess the same underlying concepts has crucial implications for the interpretation of findings across studies, harmonisation of multi-cohort data for pooled analyses, and design of future studies. As part of the 'IPD-Work' (Individual-participant-data meta-analysis in working populations) consortium, we compared different versions of the demands and control scales available in 17 European cohort studies.
methodsSix of the 17 studies had information on the complete scales and 11 on partial scales. Here, we analyse individual level data from 70 751 participants of the studies which had complete scales (5 demand items, 6 job control items).
resultsWe found high Pearson correlation coefficients between complete scales of job demands and control relative to scales with at least three items (r > 0.90) and for partial scales with two items only (r = 0.76-0.88). In comparison with scores from the complete scales, the agreement between job strain definitions was very good when only one item was missing in either the demands or the control scale (kappa > 0.80); good for job strain assessed with three demand items and all six control items (kappa > 0.68) and moderate to good when items were missing from both scales (kappa = 0.54-0.76). The sensitivity was > 0.80 when only one item was missing from either scale, decreasing when several items were missing in one or both job strain subscales.
conclusionsPartial job demand and job control scales with at least half of the items of the complete scales, and job strain indices based on one complete and one partial scale, seemed to assess the same underlying concepts as the complete survey instruments.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.