Abstract
Musicians suffer from physical and mental health symptoms more frequently than the general population. Although their specific demands and challenges have been researched increasingly in the past, explanations still remain somewhat unclear. We use a large epidemiological data set to compare psychosocial work environment among 1,607 members of the Norwegian Musician’s Union with a national sample of 8,517 employees from the general Norwegian workforce. Musicians reported more control over their work; however, they felt less supported and acknowledged, had more work-family conflicts and less motivation, and perceived their work as more demanding compared to the general workforce. In the musician sample, results indicated that classical and contemporary musicians are experiencing a less favorable psychosocial environment in terms of control, demands, and acknowledgment, orchestral players felt less control and soloist less support. Future studies should explore possible interventions to improve musicians’ psychosocial work environment.
Highlights
Psychosocial work environment has been a widely researched topic in the recent decades (Regulies, 2019)
The results of a between-subjects multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) show a significant difference between the psychosocial work environment of musicians and the general workforce (GW) in all seven outcome variables
The results show that musicians’ psychosocial work environment significantly differs from the GW in all psychosocial aspects, and there are significant differences between groups playing different genres and fulfilling different roles within the music community
Summary
Psychosocial work environment has been a widely researched topic in the recent decades (Regulies, 2019). The first handbook of psychosocial epidemiology was published (Kiwimaki et al, 2017) systematically addressing psychosocial factors as contributors to illnesses and health, discussing interventions and policies, and setting a direction for future research. Psychosocial factors have been linked to different health problems, such as ischemic heart disease (Eller et al, 2008) and coronary heart disease (Peter and Siegrist, 2000), and to cardiovascular mortality in general (Johnson et al, 1996). There is evidence that it contributes to musculoskeletal pain (Torp et al, 2001) especially back pain (Hoogendoorn et al, 2000), and there are links to obesity (Jääskeläinen et al, 2015), the prevalence of smoking (Brisson et al, 2000), and mental health problems (Stansfeld and Candy, 2006; Harvey et al, 2017), such as burnout (Lindblom et al, 2006; Aronsson et al, 2017), and depression (Bonde, 2008; Theorell et al, 2015)
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