Digital Workplace Monitoring, Employee Autonomy, and Work-Related Stress, Depression, or Anxiety in Post-Pandemic Europe: Evidence from the 2022 OSH Pulse Survey

Digital technologies are increasingly used to supervise, direct, and evaluate work, yet European evidence on their psychosocial implications remains limited. This study examined how work-related stress, depression, or anxiety (WRSDA) varies with the number of digital monitoring practices, how much of this association is statistically attributable to lack of autonomy, and whether it differs across countries. Using 2022 OSH Pulse data (22,856 employed respondents, EU-27), we estimated weighted logistic regression models with country-clustered standard errors, conducted a KHB decomposition, and pooled country-specific estimates using random-effects meta-analysis. The predicted probability of WRSDA was 22.7% with no monitoring practices and 35.9% with all three. The association remained after adjustment for personal and work-related characteristics and was the strongest for digital supervision and third-party evaluation; interaction analyses provided no evidence that the practices reinforced one another. In the statistical decomposition, 29.0% of the association was attributable to lack of autonomy. The association was positive in 24 countries, varied moderately, and was weaker where more employees reported increasing workplace surveillance. By examining distinct monitoring practices across all EU Member States, this study adds to existing evidence; however, the findings are cross-sectional, exploratory, and based on single-item measures.