Occupational sitting time and its association with work engagement and job demand-control

Background: Research suggests that high sedentary behaviour (‘sitting time’) has significant deleterious effects on cardio-metabolic and musculoskeletal health, independent of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. Adults average about 60% of their waking time and 70-80% of their working time sedentary. Epidemiological and occupational health research provides143support that reducing sitting behaviour and promoting standing and light movement enhances health and wellbeing. However, studies have yet to examine the relationship between occupational sitting and work performance. As a first step to understanding the relationship between occupational sitting and work performance, this study examined whether occupational sitting time was associated with work engagement and job demands.Method: Survey data was analysed from the 2012 STORMONT cohort study. This is a new study tracking a large cohort of employees through and beyond their career with the Northern Ireland Civil Service. 5,235 office-based employees participated in the first wave of data collection focusing on self-report health, wellbeing and working conditions. For this study, individual data on measures of occupational sitting, work engagement and job demands (Management Standards Indicator Tool) were extracted. Occupational sitting time was categorised into Tertiles of low (0-360 minutes), moderate (361-420 minutes) and high sitting time (421-720 minutes). Separate constructs of work engagement were also categorised into Tertiles of low, medium and high work engagement. For job demands, ratios were calculated for high strain, low strain, active jobs and passive jobs. Logistic regression was used to examine the association between moderate occupational sitting time (against low occupational sitting time) and the selected variables, and high occupational sitting time (against low occupational sitting time) and same variables, controlling for age, BMI, physical activity and occupational group. Data were analysed separately for men and women.Results: For men, those who did not meet physical activity guidelines, were smokers, reported low vigour, low dedication, high job strain and passive jobs were more likely to have high occupational sitting times than low occupational sitting times. After controlling for occupational group, only low vigour remained significant. For women, those with low vigour and high absorption were more likely to have high occupational sitting times. After entering control variables into the model, no findings remained significant.Conclusions: The findings suggest that high sitting times are associated with negative work outcomes. This study adds to the sparse literature on occupational sitting time and work performance.