Workplace levels of psychosocial factors as prospective predictors of registered sickness absence.
OBJECTIVE
We sought to investigate whether workplace levels of psychosocial work environment factors predict individual sickness absence.


METHODS
Data were collected in a prospective study in 52 Danish workplaces in three organizations: municipal care, technical services, and a pharmaceutical company. Psychosocial factors were aggregated as workplace means. We used multilevel Poisson regression models with psychosocial factors as predictors and individual level sickness absence from absence registries as outcome.


RESULTS
High workplace levels of decision authority predicted low sickness absence in the technical services (rate ratio = 0.66, 95% confidence interval = 0.51-0.86) and high workplace levels of skill discretion predicted low sickness absence in the pharmaceutical company (rate ratio = 0.74, 95% confidence interval = 0.62-0.88) after control for relevant confounders. Workplaces in municipal care did not differ with respect to the psychosocial factors.


CONCLUSIONS
Psychosocial factors at the workplace level may be important predictors of sickness absence.
Christensen
Karl Bang
KB
National Institute of Occupational Health, Copenhagen, Denmark. kbc@ami.dk
Nielsen
Martin L
ML
Rugulies
Reiner
R
Smith-Hansen
Lars
L
Kristensen
Tage S
TS
D000041:Absenteeism; D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012044:Regression Analysis; D018582:Sick Leave; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D017132:Workplace