Occupational characteristics and incident anxiety and depression: A prospective cohort study of 206,790 participants

Background: This study aimed to analyze the impact of a wide spectrum of occupational characteristics on the incidence of anxiety and depression, and to determine the features affecting adaptation to specific characteristics. Methods: Participants in paid employment or self-employed at baseline in UKB were included, with occupational characteristics extracted from O*NET. Cox-proportional-hazard models were conducted in the main analyses and subgroup analyses. Results: Direct work with the public and exposure to disease/infections were first time demonstrated to be risk factors for both anxiety and depression, along with occupations involving more physical activities and dealing with unpleasant/physically aggressive people. Protective factors for both: time spent sitting, communication, decision making, creativity and reasoning, and responsibility in work. Protective factors for anxiety only: Coordinating/leading, fluency of ideas, originality, problem sensitivity, decision latitude, and time pressure. Risk factor for depression only: Exposure to contaminants. Females were found more sensitive to dealing with un-pleasant/physically aggressive people. The impact of exposure to disease/infections was more significant among those with lower education levels. Those with BMI over 24 were more sensitive to the risk factors. Limitations: The short-term effect of the above exposures remained unclear. The scores of occupational charac-teristics were based on self-reported questionnaires. There was the potential for undiagnosed anxiety or depression events. The participants included only those aged from 40 to 69. Participants included in this cohort were mainly White British. Conclusions: Our findings advocate closer monitoring of the mental health of workers with risk work-related factors.