ArticleOccupational medicine (Oxford, England)2025
Working hours and depression in the HEAF cohort.
Article in Occupational medicine (Oxford, England), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundLong working hours and unemployment adversely affect mental health. Modern policies aim to keep adults working to older ages.
aimsTo explore the bidirectional association between working hours and depression among older workers.
methodsWe used data from the Health and Employment After Fifty (HEAF) longitudinal study of adults aged 50-64 years recruited from English general practices. Participants completed baseline (2013-14) and annual (until 2019) questionnaires, including questions about working hours (<20, 20 to <35, 35-40, >40 h/week) and the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (scores ≥16 used to define depression). The association between working hours and incident depression, and the reverse association between baseline depression and reducing working hours, were explored using Poisson regression.
resultsOf 3866 HEAF participants in paid work without baseline depression, 32% developed incident depression. Those who were financially comfortable and working <20 h (incidence rate ratio (IRR) 1.47, 95% CI 1.11-1.95) and those of intermediate financial status working 20-35 h (IRR 1.26, 95% CI 1.05-1.52) were at increased risk of depression. Among participants with depression at baseline, only men of intermediate financial status were more likely to decrease working hours (IRR 1.19, 95% CI 1.06-1.33) or stop working altogether.
conclusionsIncident depression was common in this older worker cohort and the risk varied by working hours and financial status. It is important to know more about reasons for leaving work in relation to depression to inform targeted strategies for supporting older adults to remain in work.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.