title: Do psychosocial job demands and job resources predict long-term sickness absence? An analysis of register-based outcomes using pooled data on 39,408 individuals in four occupational groups.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate whether psychosocial job demands (work pace and quantitative demands) and job resources (influence at work and quality of leadership) predict long-term sickness absence (LTSA) for more than three consecutive weeks in four occupational groups.
  
  
  METHODS
  Survey data pooling 39,408 respondents were fitted to a national register containing information on payments of sickness absence compensation. Using multi-adjusted Cox regression, respondents were followed for an 18-month follow-up period to assess risk of LTSA.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the entire study population, low and medium levels of influence at work and low quality of leadership predicted a significantly increased risk of LTSA, whereas medium levels of quantitative demands predicted a significantly reduced risk of LTSA. For employees working with clients and for office workers, low and medium influence at work associated with a significantly increased risk of LTSA. For employees working with clients, low quality of leadership predicted a significantly increased risk of LTSA. For manual workers, low influence at work predicted a significantly increased risk of LTSA and medium quantitative demands were associated with a significantly reduced risk of LTSA. For employees working with customers, medium quantitative demands predicted a significantly reduced risk of LTSA. Finally, in predicting LTSA, we found significant interaction effects between job demands and job resources.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The study indicates that a lack of job resources--particularly influence at work--are more important predictors of LTSA than high job demands.
authors.affiliation: National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Lersø Parkalle 105, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark, tcl@nrcwe.dk.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Clausen
authors.forename: Hermann
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Burr
authors.forename: Vilhelm
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Borg
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004651:Employment / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009790:Occupations / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011584:Psychology; D012042:Registries; D018582:Sick Leave / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016526:Workload / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data