The relationship between psychosocial hazards and mental health in the construction industry: A meta-analysis

The mental health of the construction workforce is an important health and safety concern for the construction industry. Individual studies show that work-related psychosocial hazards have negative implications for mental health. This meta-analysis aims to source and integrate existing studies to ascertain a more holistic indication of the relationship between psychosocial hazards and mental health in the construction industry. By conducting a random-effects meta-analysis, quantitative results of 48 existing studies (N = 13083), representing 14 identified psychosocial hazards, were combined. Results showed that the pooled correlation coefficient between psychosocial hazards and mental health problems was 0.28 (95% CI 0.24 to 0.33). Among the 14 psychosocial hazards, role conflict (r = 0.41, 95% CI 0.23 to 0.57) had the strongest significant correlation with mental health problems, followed by role ambiguity (r = 0.35, 95% CI 0.21 to 0.49), job insecurity (r = 0.31, 95% CI 0.21 to 0.41), and interpersonal conflict (r = 0.31, 95% CI 0.25 to 0.36). Meta-regression revealed year of publication effects and subgroup analyses revealed between-study variance could be partially explained by location, occupation, outcome, and timeframe. No publication bias was found according to Egger's test. This study provides a synthesis of the relationship between psychosocial hazards and mental health in the construction industry and highlights implications for future research.

Automated summary

The study conducted a meta-analysis to explore the relationship between psychosocial hazards and mental health in the construction industry. It found significant correlations between various psychosocial hazards and mental health problems, highlighting the need for further research in this area to improve the well-being of the construction workforce.