Sick but yet at work. An empirical study of sickness presenteeism

Aronsson, Gunnar; Gustafsson, Klas; Dallner, Margareta

doi:10.1136/jech.54.7.502

Cited by 967 publications

(1,228 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…The presence of precarious employees may produce pressures that diminish the working conditions of all workers, for example by increasing demands on more secure workers to absorb a greater volume of work or take on additional tasks and supervision due to reductions in the fulltime workforce. 2 This phenomenon, if present, would reduce apparent differences between precarious and more secure workers employed in the same workplace. In the present study, for example, the presence of precarious employees may have contributed to the excessive work intensity reported by permanent employees.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Working hours, work-life conflict and health in precarious and "permanent" employment

et al. 2004

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ObjectivesThe expansion of precarious employment in OECD countries has been widely associated with negative health and safety effects. Although many shiftworkers are precariously employed, shiftwork research has concentrated on full-time workers in continuing employment. This paper examines the impact of precarious employment on working hours, work-life conflict and health by comparing casual employees to fulltime, "permanent" employees working in the same occupations and workplaces. Methods Thirty-nine convergent interviews were conducted in two five-star hotels. The participants included 26 full-time and 13 casual (temporary) employees. They ranged in age from 19 to 61 years and included 17 females and 22 males. Working hours ranged from zero to 73 hours per week. Results Marked differences emerged between the reports of casual and full-time employees about working hours, work-life conflict and health. Casuals were more likely to work highly irregular hours over which they had little control. Their daily and weekly working hours ranged from very long to very short according to organisational requirements. Long working hours, combined with low predictability and control, produced greater disruption to family and social lives and poorer work-life balance for casuals. Uncoordinated hours across multiple jobs exacerbated these problems in some cases. Health-related issues reported to arise from work-life conflict included sleep disturbance, fatigue and disrupted exercise and dietary regimes. Conclusions This study identified significant disadvantages of casual employment. In the same hotels, and doing largely the same jobs, casual employees had less desirable and predictable work schedules, greater work-life conflict and more associated health complaints than "permanent" workers. Resumo Objetivos

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Working hours, work-life conflict and health in precarious and "permanent" employment

et al. 2004

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“…Two of 3 additional epidemiologic studies replicated this pattern of a stronger association with presenteeism than with absenteeism. We did not review evidence from some other epidemiologic sources because of their reliance on nonstandardized measures of mental health and presenteeism; nonetheless, they also reported an association of presenteeism with various indicators of depression (57)(58)(59)(60). The tendency of people with depression to continue to come to work despite their illness represents a hidden cost of depression.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Common Mental Disorders in the Workforce: Recent Findings from Descriptive and Social Epidemiology

2006

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Objective: To review the recent descriptive and social epidemiology of common mental disorders in the workplace, including prevalence, participation, work disability, and impact of quality of work, as well as to discuss the implications for identifying targets for clinical and preventive interventions. Method:We conducted a structured review of epidemiologic studies in community settings (that is, in the general population or in workplaces). Evidence was restricted to the peer-reviewed, published, English-language literature up to the end of June 2005. We further restricted evidence to studies that used recent classification systems; then, if evidence was insufficient, we reviewed studies that used standardized psychiatric screening scales. To distinguish this article from recent reviews of health and work quality, we focused on new areas of investigation and new evidence for established areas of investigation: underemployment, organizational justice, job control and demand, effort-reward imbalance, and atypical (nonpermanent) employment.Results: Depression and simple phobia were found to be the most prevalent disorders in the working population. The limited data on rates of participation suggested higher participation among people with depression, simple phobia, social phobia, and generalized anxiety disorder. Depression and anxiety were more consistently associated with "presenteeism" (that is, lost productivity while at work) than with absenteeism, whether this was measured by cutback days or by direct questionnaires. Seven longitudinal studies, with an average sample size of 6264, showed a strong association between aspects of low job quality and incident depression and anxiety. There was some evidence that atypical work was associated with poorer mental health, although the findings for fixed-term work were mixed. Conclusions:Mental health risk reduction in the workplace is an important complement to clinical interventions for reducing the current and future burden of depression and anxiety in the workplace. (Can J Psychiatry 2006;51:63-75) Information on funding and support and author affiliations appears at the end of the article. Clinical Implications· The effect of depression and anxiety on work ability is significant, and maintaining capacity and productivity in the work role is an important goal of clinical treatment. · Quality of work in terms of control and demand, effort-reward imbalance, and organizational justice is a critical social influence on mental health and offers opportunities for mental health promotion and early intervention. · Identifying subpopulations in the workforce that may be at increased risk for depression and anxiety is an important area of future research both to inform early intervention and to encourage access to appropriate treatment. Limitations· Most population-based psychiatric surveys used crude measures of work disability. · Studies on the association of work quality and mental health all relied on screening instruments to assess psychiatric status; thus, these fin...

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“…Cross-sectional studies have demonstrated that presenteeism is negatively related to employees' health among health workers (Aronsson et al, 2000;Caverley, Cunningham, & MacGregor, 2007;Claus & Johan, 2008;Elstad & Vabo, 2008).…”

Section: Consequences Of Presenteeismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Specifically, feeling pressured to work when sick may dampen job satisfaction. Indeed, presenteeism is more common among medical staff with lower job satisfaction resulting from both the nature of their job and high attendance requirement (Aronsson et al, 2000). The recovery theory (Meijman & Mulder, 1998) could again account for the detrimental effect of presenteeism on job satisfaction.…”

Section: Hypothesis 3amentioning

confidence: 99%

Unhealthy and present: Motives and consequences of the act of presenteeism among Taiwanese employees.

Lin

Cooper

2013

Journal of Occupational Health Psychology

107

168

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The aim of this study was twofold: first, to delineate the underlying motives of the act of presenteeism and develop suitable measures for both the motives and the behavioral manifestation of the act; second, to systematically examine work and health consequences of the act of presenteeism in a Chinese work context. Using structured questionnaires, we employed a 2-wave panel study design in which antecedents, motives, and consequences of the act of presenteeism were measured in a diverse sample of 245 full-time Chinese employees in Taiwan. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that self-efficacy and neuroticism were significantly associated with approach and avoidance motives for the act of presenteeism, respectively. Moreover, analyzing the panel data with fixed effects specifications, we found that the act of presenteeism was negatively associated with employees' physical health, mental health, and job satisfaction, whereas it was positively associated with exhaustion. In conclusion, the present study shed some light on motives, behavioral manifestations, antecedents, and consequences of the act of presenteeism to extend the existing literature.

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Sick but yet at work. An empirical study of sickness presenteeism

Cited by 967 publications

References 10 publications

Working hours, work-life conflict and health in precarious and "permanent" employment

Working hours, work-life conflict and health in precarious and "permanent" employment

Common Mental Disorders in the Workforce: Recent Findings from Descriptive and Social Epidemiology

Unhealthy and present: Motives and consequences of the act of presenteeism among Taiwanese employees.

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