Sickness absence, employment history, and high-risk employees: a 10-year longitudinal study.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the impact of employment characteristics on the occurrence of long-term sickness absence taking socioeconomic covariates into account.


METHODS
A longitudinal analysis was conducted for 62,745 employees aged 18 to 64 during 1990-1999. A nonlinear random-effects model was used. In particular, the missing data patterns and their relationship with sickness absence were studied.


RESULTS
Strong relationship of socioeconomic background with occurrence of long-term sickness absence (≥ 3 days) was found. The missing data patterns significantly predicted sickness absence for female employees. In subsequent analysis, the discontinuous employment history with high occurrence of short-term sickness absence (<3 days) appeared to be strongly linked to long-term sickness absence in young women.


CONCLUSIONS
An investigation of missing values and short-term sickness absence as predictors for long-term sickness absence uncovered that young women with irregular employment history constituted high-risk employees.
Lu
Xiaoshu
X
Center for Work-Related Diseases, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Topeliuksenkatu, Finland. xiaoshu@cc.hut.fi
Laaksonen
Mikko
M
Aittomäki
Akseli
A
Leino-Arjas
Päivi
P
Rahkonen
Ossi
O
Saatamoinen
Peppiina
P
Lahelma
Eero
E
D000041:Absenteeism; D000328:Adult; D004651:Employment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D015233:Models, Statistical; D018570:Risk Assessment; D018582:Sick Leave / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors