An under-researched topic related to sleep among older workers is now better understood thanks to a recent study from universities in Eastern Finland and Turku. 2,771 Finnish municipal workers who were about to retire were included in the study.
The study examined how mental and physical work conditions, stressful life situations, and work-life balance were associated with trouble sleeping in older employees.
Work and non-work stressors are associated with sleep problems
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In another population study, more than half of Finnish men aged 60 to 69 years and almost 70% of Finnish women reported symptoms of insomnia during the past month.
“In our study, we identified four different components that are associated with mental stress. These are physical workload and shift work, psychosocial workload, non-work social and environmental adversity, and non-work related adversity. with life and health events,” said psychology professor Marianna. says Virtanen of the University of Eastern Finland.
Non-occupational social and environmental adversity refers to loneliness and little interaction with neighbors. Non-occupational adversity related to life and health events refers to a stressful event in a person’s life, or the provision of informal care.
“The more work and non-work stressors an employee had, the more trouble they also had with sleep.”
Flexibility is an important goal for development.
Different stressors were associated with sleep problems in different ways: work-related stress was linked to current sleep problems, while loneliness and living environment-related stress predicted increased sleep problems during monitoring. Psychosocial work conditions were also associated with sleep quality.
“In this study, psychosocial working conditions were described by job contents and arrangements, such as opportunities to influence and working hours, as well as skills development and fair management.”
Funded by the Finnish Working Environment Fund, the project provides information on factors that could be targeted by development measures and interventions for older employees.
“Especially when there are stressors in private life, such as a serious illness or death of a family member, or being an informal caregiver for someone, flexible working hours are an important goal for development,” Virtanen concludes.
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