Interference between work and outside-work demands relative to health:: Unwinding possibilities among full-time and part-time employees

Background: Demands from work and home may interfere with one another and the stress engendered by that can be detrimental to health. Purpose: To study the relationship between experienced interference and subjective health, and address the impact of unwinding on these associations. Method: Questionnaire data from a representative sample of the Swedish population are used considering full-time and part-time employed women and men aged 25-64. The associations between negative interference (either work-home or home-work) and sleep quality, self-rated health, and the use of sleeping pills/tranquillizers are analyzed by means of logistic regressions, compiling odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). The impact of adjustment for lack of unwinding on these associations is assessed. Results: Work-home interference is associated with suboptimal sleep quality and self-rated health for both women and men. The significance of this disappears among women after adjustment for lack of unwinding, regardless of work schedule. Among both sexes, home-work interference is associated with suboptimal sleep quality and self-rated health. When adjusting for lack of unwinding, the relationship to sleep quality disappears, but not the one to self-rated health, equally for women and men. Conclusion: Only among women, unwinding seems to buffer the association between work-home interference and health.