Associations among job demands and resources, work engagement, and psychological distress: fixed‐effects model analysis in Japan

Objectives We examined the associations among job demands and resources, work engagement, and psychological distress, adjusted for time‐invariant individual attributes. Methods We used data from a Japanese occupational cohort survey, which included 18,702 observations of 7,843 individuals. We investigated how work engagement, measured by the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, was associated with key aspects of job demands and resources, using fixed‐effects regression models. We further estimated the fixed‐effects models to assess how work engagement moderated the association between each job characteristic and psychological distress as measured by Kessler 6 scores. Results The fixed‐effects models showed that work engagement was positively associated with job resources, as did pooled cross‐sectional and prospective cohort models. Specifically, the standardized regression coefficients (β) were 0.148 and 0.120 for extrinsic reward and decision latitude, respectively, compared to ‐0.159 and 0.020 for role ambiguity and workload and time pressure, respectively ( p < 0.001 for all associations). Work engagement modestly moderated the associations of psychological distress with workload and time pressure and extrinsic reward; a one‐standard deviation increase in work engagement moderated their associations by 19.2% ( p < 0.001) and 11.3% ( p = 0.034), respectively. Conclusions Work engagement was associated with job demands and resources, which is in line with the theoretical prediction of the job demands‐resources model, even after controlling for time‐invariant individual attributes. Work engagement moderated the association between selected aspects of job demands and resources and psychological distress.