Relationship between job satisfaction and perceived stress, depression experience for employees with disabilities

BackgroundWorkers with disabilities may face workplace barriers and psychosocial stressors that can affect job satisfaction and mental health.ObjectiveTo examine the associations of job satisfaction with perceived stress and depressive symptoms among wage workers with disabilities in Korea.MethodsWe analyzed repeated observations from the 2016-2018 Panel Survey of Employment for the Disabled. The longitudinal sample included 2096 individuals contributing 5012 wage-employed person-year observations. Generalized estimating equations with a logit link and exchangeable working correlation accounted for within-person correlation. Outcome-specific complete-case models included 4735 observations for perceived stress and 4695 for depressive symptoms. Sensitivity analyses modeled job satisfaction continuously.ResultsLower job satisfaction was associated with greater odds of both outcomes. Compared with the 40-50-point group, the 10-19-point group had higher odds of perceived stress (OR = 2.309, 95% CI 1.271-4.193) and depressive symptoms (OR = 5.863, 95% CI 2.643-13.007). In continuous-score sensitivity analyses, each 10-point increase in job satisfaction was associated with lower odds of perceived stress (OR = 0.845, 95% CI 0.760-0.939) and depressive symptoms (OR = 0.632, 95% CI 0.512-0.780).ConclusionsLower job satisfaction was associated with poorer mental health among wage workers with disabilities. These findings identify job satisfaction as a relevant correlate of mental health but do not establish causal effects.