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

Abstract

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.