Johan Høy Jensen

• Psychologist PhD
• Senior Researcher at Team Working Life Denmark

Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis hyperactivity measured by the combined dexamethasone-CRH test (DEX-CRH test) has been found in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), whereas hypoactivity has been found in patients with work-related stress. We aimed to investigate the DEX-CRH test as a biomarker to distinguish between MDD and work-...

Aims Adverse factors in the psychosocial work environment are associated with the onset of depression among those without a personal history of depression. However, the evidence is sparse regarding whether adverse work factors can also play a role in depression recurrence. This study aimed to prospectively examine whether factors in the psychosocia...

Mindfulness‐based stress reduction (MBSR) is a 9‐session group‐treatment programme for managing stress. Research suggests variability in the outcomes of MBSR among participants. This prognostic (not causal) study develops a multivariable model that may support clinicians in forecasting expected MBSR outcomes. We used data of 763 patients collected...

Background: Foreign-born workers in high-income countries experience higher rates of COVID-19 but the causes are only partially known. Aims: To examine if the occupational risk of COVID-19 in foreign-born workers deviates from the risk in native-born employees in Denmark. Methods: Within a registry-based cohort of all residents employed in Den...

Objective To map the risk of work-related SARS-CoV-2 across occupations and pandemic waves and investigate its impact on morbidity and partner-risk. Methods The cohort includes 2,4 million employees aged 20–69 with follow-up from 2020 through 2021. During this period, 261,203 employees had a positive SARS-CoV-2 test and 4416 were admitted to hospi...

Introduction Frequencies of mental health conditions are increasing among children and adolescents. Providing long-term informal care for family members has been associated with detrimental stress-related outcomes. This study examines health and job impacts for working caregivers, who have children with mental disorders. Material and Methods This...

Objective Most earlier studies on occupational risk of COVID-19 covering the entire workforce are based on relatively rare outcomes such as hospital admission and mortality. This study examines the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection by occupational group based on real-time PCR (RT-PCR) tests. Methods The cohort includes 2.4 million Danish employees...

Objective: This study aimed to quantify the risk of COVID-19-related hospital admission in spouses living with partners in at-risk occupations in Denmark during 2020-21. Methods: Within a registry-based cohort of all Danish employees (N=2 451 542), we identified cohabiting couples, in which at least one member (spouse) held a job that according...

Objective: Assuming that preventive measures to mitigate viral transmission of SARS-CoV-2 at the workplace may have been improved in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, we examined the occupational risk of COVID-19 related hospital admission across the four pandemic waves in Denmark between week 8, 2020, and week 50, 2021. Methods: The study in...

Background The association between psychosocial working environments and sickness absence is well-known. However, the potential for reducing sickness absences of different lengths through improvements in psychosocial work factors is not fully understood. We aim to quantify the potential for reducing short-, intermediate- and long-term sickness abse...

Objective Cognitive impairment is a common complaint in prolonged work-related stress and may contribute to work disability. The objective was to evaluate the longitudinal impacts of objectively and subjectively measured cognitive impairment on occupational status and to evaluate the measurement’s predictive properties regarding occupational progno...

Objective To study associations between maternal stress during pregnancy and reproductive function in young men. Design A cohort study nested in a population-based birth cohort. Setting Not applicable. Patients Young men (n = 1,052; response rate, 19%) participated in the Fetal Programming of Semen Quality cohort from 2017 to 2019. They were rec...

Introduction The health care system of Denmark is currently undergoing major centralizations. Relocation of workplaces as well as mergers and split-ups may impact both health and productivity among employees and managers. The unification of all hospital units in Aarhus, Denmark, poses an opportunity to study the short- and long-term consequences of...

Introduction Many individuals with long-term work-related stress complain that cognitive limitations impede their vocational functioning. Subjective cognitive complaints, however, may not accurately reflect objective cognitive impairment. Objectives We aimed to evaluate objective and subjective tools for screening of neurocognitive impairment and...

Objective: Many patients with work-related stress display cognitive impairment that may hamper recovery. We examined objective and subjective tools for screening of cognitive impairment in this patient group. Methods: Patients were assessed with Danish versions of the objective Screen for Cognitive Impairment in Psychiatry (SCIP-D), standardized...

Objective to examine the hypothesis that PTSD with delayed expression in some cases occur without subthreshold PTSD symptoms above background levels bridging the gap between the traumatic exposure(s) and the clinical diagnosis. Methods We performed systematic searches of peer-reviewed papers in English referenced in Pubmed, Embase or PsycINFO and...

Background Pregnancy can make it difficult to cope with demands at work and may affect women’s well-being. We investigated if a manager-targeted educational intervention reduced demanding occupational exposures and improved the psychosocial work environment and well-being among pregnant employees. Methods Data came from a cluster randomised trial...

Objectives: Poor psychosocial work environments in hospitals are associated with higher employee turnover. In this prospective cohort study, we aimed to identify and quantify which aspects of the psychosocial work environment have the greatest impact on one-year employee turnover rates within a hospital setting, both overall and within occupationa...

Background Whether workplace social capital affects employees’ mental health is debated. We examined the association between work-unit aggregated social capital and incident purchase of psychotropic medications among employees. Methods We used data from the WHALE (Well-being in Hospital Employees) cohort study. The study population comprised 21711...

Purpose The impact of organizational change at work on cardiovascular disease (CVD) among employees is poorly understood. We examined the longitudinal associations between different types of work-unit organizational changes and risk of CVD among employees. Methods We used multilevel mixed-effects parametric survival models to assess the risk of in...

Purpose To determine the prospective relation between workplace violence and the risk of long-term sickness absence (LTSA), and study if work-unit social capital could buffer this effect. As an explorative analysis, the association between work-unit social capital and workplace violence is also tested. Methods The study is based on the Well-being...

Objectives: We examined exposure to different types of organisational changes at work as risk factors for subsequent prescription for psychotropic medication among employees. Methods: The study population included 15 038 public healthcare employees nested within 1284 work units in the Capital Region of Denmark. Multilevel mixed-effects parametric s...

Objectives: Organizational changes are associated with higher rates of subsequent employee exit from the workplace, but the mediating role of social capital is unknown. We examined the associations between organizational changes and subsequent employee exit from the work unit and mediation through social capital. Methods: Throughout 2013, 14 059 he...

Objective There is a lack of studies investigating social capital at the workplace level in small and relatively homogeneous work-units. The aim of the study was to investigate whether work-unit social capital predicts a lower risk of individual long-term sickness absence among Danish hospital employees followed prospectively for 1 year. Methods T...

Objectives We investigated work-unit exit, total and long-term sickness absence following organisational change among public healthcare employees. Methods The study population comprised employees from the Capital Region of Denmark (n=14 388). Data on reorganisation at the work-unit level (merger, demerger, relocation, change of management, employe...

Background Research indicates that stressed managers could be harmful for employee wellbeing. Social capital is a construct to address the psychosocial work environment. To our knowledge no study has investigated the relationship between stressed managers and workplace social capital. Objective This study examines the association between managers’...

Objective Organisational change may negatively affect employees’ health and social capital. This study examined the magnitude of mediated effects from organisational change through social capital on long-term sickness absence (LSA) among public hospital workers. Method In March 2014, 26.209 workers employed through January-December 2013 in the Cap...

Background Organisational change is associated with adverse health outcomes for employees. The association may be mediated by changes in the psychosocial work environment. Workplace social capital (WSC) is a recent construct, which has been shown predictive of health outcomes when studying the psychosocial work environment. Currently, there is no e...

Objective This study examines the impact of organizational change and psychosocial work environment on non-disability early retirement among senior public service employees. Methods In January and February 2011, Danish senior public service employees aged 58-64 years (N=3254) from the Capital Region of Denmark responded to a survey assessing psycho...

Objective This study examines the impact of organisational change and psychosocial work environment on non-disability early retirement in senior public service employees. Methods In January and February 2011 Danish senior public service employees aged 60–64 (N = 3,254) from the Capital Region of Denmark responded to a survey assessing psychosocial...

Background: Neurocognitive impairment in remitted patients with bipolar disorder contributes to functional disabilities. However, the pattern and impact of these deficits are unclear. Methods: We pooled data from 193 fully or partially remitted patients with bipolar disorder and 110 healthy controls. Hierarchical cluster analysis was conducted t...

Cognitive impairment is common in bipolar disorder and contributes to socio-occupational difficulties. The objective was to validate and evaluate instruments to screen for and monitor cognitive impairments, and improve the understanding of the association between cognitive measures and socio-occupational capacity. Patients with bipolar disorder in...