Perceived psychosocial safety climate, psychological distress, and work engagement in Japanese employees: A cross‐sectional mediation analysis of job demands and job resources

OBJECTIVES: We examined the associations of perceived psychosocial safety climate (PSC) with psychological distress and work engagement in Japanese employees. We also examined the mediation effects of job demands (i.e., psychological demands) and job resources (i.e., job control, worksite support, and extrinsic reward) in these associations. METHODS: A total of 2200 employees (1100 men and 1100 women) registered with a Japanese online survey company were surveyed using a self‐administered web‐based questionnaire containing the scales on PSC (12‐item PSC scale), job demands and job resources (Job Content Questionnaire and Effort‐Reward Imbalance Questionnaire), psychological distress (K6 scale), and work engagement (9‐item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale), and items on demographic and occupational characteristics (i.e., age, sex, education, occupation, work form, and working hours per week). A multiple mediation analysis with a bootstrap method was conducted. RESULTS: After adjusting for demographic and occupational characteristics, significant negative and positive total effects of perceived PSC were observed on psychological distress and work engagement, respectively (c = −0.258 [95% confidence interval (CI): −0.298 to −0.219] and 0.383 [95% CI: 0.344–0.421], respectively). When we included job demands and job resources as mediators in the model, significant total mediation effects in these associations were observed (c − c′ = −0.181 [95% CI: −0.221 to −0.143] and 0.269 [95% CI: 0.234–0.304], respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that perceived PSC is negatively associated with psychological distress and positively associated with work engagement, and that these associations are partially mediated (or explained) by job demands and job resources.