(in German)

Under the "Working Hours" topic in the project entitled "Mental health in the working world - Determining the current state of scientific evidence", six scoping reviews were conducted to investigate the effects of very different aspects of working time on the well-being and mental health of employees. Firstly, traditional aspects of working time such as shift work, weekend work, long working hours and breaks, as well as emergency services and on-call duty, were considered. Secondly, work-related permanent availability and other forms of flexible working hours, such as employees' ability to influence their working hours and the predictability and variability of working hours, as well as spatial mobility, were also taken into account. Finally, the role of the factors of detachment - which is disconnection from work - and work-life balance have been examined in more detail. Both are central mediating factors between the concrete working (time) design and mental health of employees.

Overall, the analyses show that working-time demands placed on employees tend to be related to poorer mental health, while aspects of working time associated with increased employee autonomy and the predictability of working time tend to be more favourable to the well-being and mental health of employees. Design recommendations regarding the investigated working time characteristics are derived from the findings.

This article is published in the Journal "Arbeitsmedizin, Sozialmedizin, Umweltmedizin : ASU, Zeitschrift für medizinische Prävention", Volume 53, Issue December 2018, pp. 20-24.

Please download the article "Working time" (in German only).