(in German)

The presented work aimed at summarizing and aggregating the recent state of knowledge on the impact of work-related and personal resources on positive aspects of mental health in the job context. It was conducted by means of a systematic review including the deduction of recommendations for research and prevention.

The investigation focused on German- and English-language studies published between 1990 and 2011 in six scientific databases; it was supplemented by a hand search.

The accomplishment of this review was geared to the PRISMA Statement for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses (see e. g. MOHER, LIBERATI, TETZLAFF & ALTMAN, 2009).

The analysis revealed that merely 42 studies of relevance with regard to contents could be detected. Again, only 20 of these studies fulfilled the quality requirements and were, thus, included in the review. The majority of the included studies concerns scientific investigations based on two times of measurement. Whereas there is a great variety of investigated constructs regarding work-related and personal resources, the scope of investigated outcomes is mainly limited to four constructs indicating positive aspects of mental health. Overall, only two of the studies included in the review examined interaction effects between work-related and personal resources.

Due to the large heterogeneity of the studies with regard to methods of data acquisition and data analysis the aspired aggregation of findings is not possible.

Recommendations to be deducted from this systematic review mainly concern requirements for further research such as the increased orientation on modern holistic concepts of mental health, the conduction of longitudinal full panels with more than two times of measurement, the exploration of interaction effects as well as the more extensive application of instruments acquiring work characteristics (or positive aspects of mental health, respectively) as they are (rather than as they are perceived).

Please download the complete report "Impact of work-related and personal resources on positive aspects of mental health" (in German only).