Abstract
Purpose
To investigate whether psychosocial job demands (work pace and quantitative demands) and job resources (influence at work and quality of leadership) predict long-term sickness absence (LTSA) for more than three consecutive weeks in four occupational groups.
Methods
Survey data pooling 39,408 respondents were fitted to a national register containing information on payments of sickness absence compensation. Using multi-adjusted Cox regression, respondents were followed for an 18-month follow-up period to assess risk of LTSA.
Results
In the entire study population, low and medium levels of influence at work and low quality of leadership predicted a significantly increased risk of LTSA, whereas medium levels of quantitative demands predicted a significantly reduced risk of LTSA. For employees working with clients and for office workers, low and medium influence at work associated with a significantly increased risk of LTSA. For employees working with clients, low quality of leadership predicted a significantly increased risk of LTSA. For manual workers, low influence at work predicted a significantly increased risk of LTSA and medium quantitative demands were associated with a significantly reduced risk of LTSA. For employees working with customers, medium quantitative demands predicted a significantly reduced risk of LTSA. Finally, in predicting LTSA, we found significant interaction effects between job demands and job resources.
Conclusions
The study indicates that a lack of job resources—particularly influence at work—are more important predictors of LTSA than high job demands.
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of Ebbe Villadsen, Jørgen Vinsløv Hansen and Ida E. H. Madsen, The National Research Centre for the Working Environment and Lars Smith-Hansen, Clinical Research Centre, Hvidovre Hospital, Denmark. This study was funded from a grant from the Danish Working Environment Research Fund (Grant Number 16-2009-03).
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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.
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Clausen, T., Burr, H. & Borg, V. Do psychosocial job demands and job resources predict long-term sickness absence? An analysis of register-based outcomes using pooled data on 39,408 individuals in four occupational groups. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 87, 909–917 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-014-0936-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-014-0936-7