title: Impacts on work performance; what matters 6 months on?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Presenteeism often precedes and follows a period of work absence. Cross-sectional analysis of a workforce survey highlighted health, psychosocial and work characteristics as being particularly important in understanding current work performance, but it is unclear whether these variables predict future work performance.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To establish whether self-reported health, perceptions of work and objective characteristics of work measured at baseline can predict performance at 6 months follow-up.
  
  
  METHODS
  Self-completed questionnaires to assess health, objective characteristics of work and perceptions of work were completed at two public sector organizations. Follow-up questionnaires were completed at 6 months to assess workplace performance using a visual analogue scale for self-rated performance and the Stanford Presenteeism Scale 6 (SPS6).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Five hundred and five employees completed questionnaires at baseline and 310 (61%) of these completed follow-up questionnaires. Psychological distress as measured with the General Health Questionnaire and perceptions of work predicted both self-rated performance and SPS6 score. Objective characteristics of work were relatively unimportant in the prediction of future performance.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study has provided an initial indication of the factors that may predict performance at follow-up in the population studied. These findings may be used to generate hypotheses for future studies and highlights the need to assess a range of factors in relation to an individual's performance at work including health and perceptions of work.
authors.affiliation: Arthritis Research UK Primary Care Centre, Primary Care Sciences, Keele University, Keele ST5 5BG, UK. g.wynne-jones@cphc.keele.ac.uk
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wynne-Jones
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Buck
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Varnava
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Phillips
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Main
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D059026:Diagnostic Self Evaluation; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D004650:Employee Performance Appraisal / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016272:Occupational Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000209:etiology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017132:Workplace / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000523:psychology