Employees who experience both high time pressure and high emotional demands at work face more than double the risk of depressive symptoms compared with employees who do not face this combination. That is the finding of new research by Denmark’s National Research Centre for the Working Environment (NFA), published on 9 October 2026. Strikingly, the two risk factors appear to reinforce each other rather than simply add up.
What did the researchers find?
The researchers analysed data from more than 18,000 Danish employees who took part in the national Working Environment and Health survey between 2012 and 2018. They linked working conditions at the start of the study to depressive symptoms measured two years later, using a standardised questionnaire. Participants who already had depressive symptoms at the outset were excluded, so the study focuses on newly emerging symptoms. The analysis was adjusted for gender, age, education and occupation.
Employees who reported both a heavy workload combined with time pressure and high emotional demands had more than twice the risk of developing depressive symptoms. According to NFA, the combinations of high physical demands with high emotional demands, and of physical demands with time pressure, were also associated with more than double the risk. However, the combination of time pressure and emotional demands showed the strongest link to depressive symptoms.
Demands reinforce each other
According to the lead author, a simple addition of the two risk factors would be expected to double the risk. The risk found, however, is higher when both demands are present at the same time. This points to a reinforcing effect rather than a straightforward sum. The researchers stress that this is a statistical association: the study shows an increased risk, not proof that time pressure and emotional strain directly cause depression. They also note limitations: the data is self-reported by participants, and it concerns depressive symptoms rather than clinical diagnoses.
What can employers do?
High emotional demands occur mainly in the care and welfare sector, education and healthcare: sectors where personal contact with patients, clients or pupils is difficult to avoid. The researchers therefore advise employers to look primarily at the other side of the equation: do employees have too many tasks or too little time to do their work properly, and can that be adjusted? According to them, it can help to prevent employees from facing several heavy demands at the same time.
Context
Figures from the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) show that psychosocial strain in the workplace is a wider European problem too. According to the 2025 OSH Pulse survey, 29 percent of employees in the EU experience work-related stress, depression or anxiety. More than 40 percent of respondents report severe time pressure, and roughly one in three feels that their own efforts go unnoticed. Time pressure is therefore also a common psychosocial risk factor at the European level.
For employers and prevention specialists, the Danish findings underline that it can be worthwhile not to assess psychosocial risks in isolation. Anyone who looks only at individual factors in a risk assessment may overlook the combination of workload, emotional strain and physical demands.
Source: Time pressure combined with high emotional demands at work raises the risk of depression, 9 October 2026
Additional research: EU-OSHA, OSH Pulse 2025
