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Updated: Oct 31, 2025

Author Spotlight: Unveiling the Connection Between Sleep Disorders and Cognitive Symptoms in Depression
Published on: April 26, 2024
Locked in Permanent Employment-Longitudinal Associations With Depressive and Functional Somatic Symptoms
Pekka Virtanen1, Anne Hammarström, Urban Janlert
1Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland (Mr Virtanen); Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm (Mr Virtanen, Ms Hammarström); Department of Epidemiology and Global Health, Umeå University, Umeå (Mr Janlert), Sweden.
Objective:
To study mental health as a precedent and an outcome of not being in the preferred job ("locked-in situation").
Methods:
Longitudinal data from age 16 to 43 were derived from surveys of the Northern Swedish Cohort. Changes in mental health were studied with analyses of variance for repeated measures.
Results:
Getting out of locked-in situation was associated with improving and getting into locked-in with worsening mental health between age 30 and age 43. The worsening was more pronounced and the improvement less pronounced in white-collar than in blue-collar employees. Poor mental health at age 16 predicted locked-in situation in early middle age.
Conclusions:
The findings clarify the bidirectional nature of the associations between locked-in situation and poor mental health, as well as the importance of social class in assessing these associations.
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