title: Shift work and mental health sickness absence: a 10-year observational cohort study among male production workers.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Epidemiological studies investigating mental-health-related sickness absence (SA) among shift workers are lacking. This 10-year observational study investigated the risk of mental health SA among shift compared with day workers.
  
  
  METHODS
  The data of 5826 male production workers were used for analyses: 4288 (74%) shift and 1538 (26%) day workers. The risk of mental health SA was analyzed with Cox regression analysis. Hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were adjusted for age and occupational grade.
  
  
  RESULTS
  During a 10-year follow-up, 351 shift workers and 126 day workers had incident mental health SA. The risk of mental health SA did not differ (HR 1.03, 95% CI 0.84-1.26) between shift and day workers. Among shift workers, the risk of SA due to mood disorders (HR 1.87, 95% CI 0.73-4.76) was non-significantly higher than among day workers. A total of 96 shift workers and 21 day workers had recurrent mental health SA. The risk of recurrent mental health SA did not differ (HR 1.04, 95% CI 0.62-1.74) between shift and day workers.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The risk of incident and recurrent mental health SA did not differ between shift and day workers.
authors.affiliation: ArboNed, PO Box 85091, 3508 AB Utrecht, The Netherlands. giny.norder@arboned.nl.
authors.forename: Giny
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Norder
authors.forename: Corné A M
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Roelen
authors.forename: Ute
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Bültmann
authors.forename: Jac J L
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: van der Klink
mesh_terms: D015331:Cohort Studies; D015989:Healthy Worker Effect; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017533:Marital Status; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands / Q000453:epidemiology; D009790:Occupations / Q000145:classification*; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D018582:Sick Leave / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014940:Work Schedule Tolerance / Q000523:psychology*