Excessive sick leave is a concern in many workplaces, as it has the potential to impact on company productivity and profitability. Many companies attempt to reduce the instance of sick leave by requiring medical certificates and telephone notification of absence, but this approach can be insufficient on its own.

In this Danish study, approximately 3000 people completed a questionnaire which included questions about work environment and the respondents’ perception of their work. These included issues such as the demands they faced at work, how they felt they were treated by their company and the leadership qualities exhibited by their managers.

The information was correlated with records of sickness absence lasting more than three weeks in the year following completion of the questionnaire. 

After completing appropriate scientific statistical analyses, the researchers found that the people who reported a greater level of role conflict and who reported their work was more emotionally demanding were more likely to have higher levels of sickness absence.

The study concludes that workplaces who want to reduce their sickness absence rates should spend time examining the workplace environment. Excessive sick leave can be reduced by clearly defining work roles and minimising the emotional demands of work, such as active attempts to reduce the difficulty in interpersonal relationships between co-workers and supervisors.

Authors

Rugulies R. Aust B. & Pejtersen JH. 

Institution

National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark. rer@nrcwe.dk

Title

Do psychosocial work environment factors measured with scales from the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire predict register-based sickness absence of 3 weeks or more in Denmark?

Source

Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. 38(3 Suppl):42-50, 2010 Feb.

Abstract

AIMS: To analyse the predictive validity of 18 psychosocial work environment scales from the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire version II (COPSOQ II) with regard to risk of sickness absence.

METHODS: The study population consisted of 3188 wage earners (52% women) from a representative sample of Danish residents. Participants received the long version of the COPSOQ II in autumn and winter 2004-2005, including 18 psychosocial work environment scales from the domains ''Demands at work'', ''Work organization and job contents'', and ''Interpersonal relations and leadership''. The study endpoint was register-based sickness absence of 3 weeks or more in the 1-year period following completion of the COPSOQ II. Associations between COPSOQ scales at baseline and sickness absence at follow-up were analysed with Cox proportional hazards models, adjusted for age, gender, prevalence of a health problem at baseline, and occupational grade.

RESULTS: Sickness absence during follow-up was predicted by a one standard deviation increase on the scales of cognitive demands (hazard ratio (HR) 1.17, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.00-1.37), emotional demands (HR 1.28, 95% CI 1.10-1.50), and role conflicts (HR 1.32, 95% CI 1.15-1.52). After applying adjustment for multiple testing, the effect of emotional demands and of role conflict remained statistically significant, but not the effect of cognitive demands.

CONCLUSIONS: Selected psychosocial work environment factors from the COPSOQ predict register-based sickness absence in the Danish workforce.

Publication Type

Journal Article. Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't. 

PubMed Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21172770