title: The role of work group in individual sickness absence behavior.
abstract: The purpose of our two-year follow-up study was to examine the effect of the social components of the work group, such as group absence norms and cohesion, on sickness absence behavior among individuals with varying attitudes toward work attendance. The social components were measured using a questionnaire survey and data on sickness absence behavior were collected from the employers' records. The study population consisted of 19,306 Finnish municipal employees working in 1,847 groups (78% women). Multilevel Poisson regression modeling was applied. The direct effects of work group characteristics on sickness absence were mostly insignificant. In contrast, both of the social components of a work group had an indirect impact: The more tolerant the group absence norms (at both individual- and cross-level) and the lower the group cohesion (at the individual level), the more the absence behavior of an individual was influenced by his or her attitude toward work attendance. We conclude that work group moderates the extent to which individuals with a liberal attitude toward work attendance actually engage in sickness absence behavior.
authors.affiliation: Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Centre of Expertise for Work Organizations, Helsinki, Finland. Ari.Vaananen@ttl.fi
authors.forename: Ari
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Väänänen
authors.forename: Nuria
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tordera
authors.forename: Mika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kivimäki
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kouvonen
authors.forename: Jaana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pentti
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Linna
authors.forename: Jussi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vahtera
mesh_terms: D000041:Absenteeism; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland; D015438:Health Behavior; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011594:Psychometrics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014937:Work / Q000523:psychology*; D017132:Workplace / Q000523:psychology