Kathrine Sørensen defends her PhD thesis

Kathrine Sørensen. Photo: Søren Svendsen
Kathrine Sørensen. Photo: Søren Svendsen

Title

'Leadership Behaviours and Workers’ Risk of Depressive Disorder and Health-related Early Exit from Employment'.

Time and place

27th October 2023 at 1 pm (CEST).

The defence will take place in Auditorium 35.3.13, The Faculty of Social Sciences (CSS), Building 35, Gammeltoftsgade 15, 1355 Copenhagen.

Assessment committee

  • Associate Professor Pia Ingold, Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (chair)

  • Associate Professor Katherine Louise Musliner, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark

  • Professor Ellenor Mittendorfer-Rutz, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

Supervisors

  • Associate Professor Paul Conway, Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (principal supervisor)

  • Professor Reiner Rugulies, National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract

The aim of the thesis is to investigate associations between low levels of positive leadership behaviours and the employees’ risk of 1) depressive disorder, including clinical depressive disorder and elevated level of depressive symptoms and 2) health-related early exit from employment. The thesis includes three studies and study populations were sub-samples from the Work Environment and Health in Denmark (WEHD) survey, which included an eight-item index of positive leadership behaviours. The survey data was combined with registers of social benefits as well as health-registers. The thesis concludes that there was an association between low levels of positive leadership behaviours and depressive disorder and health-related early exit from employment. Furthermore, changes in the level of positive leadership behaviours were associated with a change in the level of depressive symptoms, as well as the self-assessed onset of depressive disorder. Some important methodological strengths of the studies include the longitudinal design and the repeated measures of leadership. However, for confidence in a causal interpretation of the data, these strengths need to be held up against important limitations, such as limitations in the measurement of leadership behaviours and possible bias due to residual confounding.