BACKGROUND Sickness absence increases with lower socioeconomic status. However, it is not well known how this relation depends on specific aspects of sickness absence or the degree to which socioeconomic differences in sickness absence may be explained by other factors.The purpose of the study was to examine differences in sickness absence among occupational groups in a large general hospital; ...

International comparisons of sickness absence rates are difficult to make because of different national social security arrangements or recording procedures. Therefore a cross national study of sickness absence in Belgium, West Germany, and the Netherlands focused firstly on "contextual" aspects of sickness absence such as work incapacity benefit schemes, job security regulations, and the role ...

OBJECTIVES People's economic difficulties are associated with their health, but consequences of changes in economic difficulties are less understood. We aimed to examine the associations between changes in economic difficulties and subsequent sickness absence while considering socioeconomic circumstances and other covariates. DESIGN A prospective cohort study. SETTING Helsinki, Finland. P...

OBJECTIVES Selective participation can bias results in epidemiological surveys. The importance of health status is often suggested as a possible explanation for non-participation but few empirical studies exist. In a population-based study, explicitly focused on sickness absence, health and work, we examined whether a history of high levels of sickness absence was associated with non-participat...

STUDY OBJECTIVE To investigate the role of social supports, social networks, and chronic stressors: (i) as predictors of sickness absence; and (ii) as potential explanations for the socioeconomic gradient in sickness absence. DESIGN A prospective cohort study (Whitehall II study) with sociodemographic factors, health and social support measured at baseline, and spells of sickness absence meas...

BACKGROUND Frequent short sickness absences result in understaffing and interfere with work processes. We need more knowledge about factors associated with this type of absence. AIMS To investigate associations between the frequency of previous sickness absence and self-reported perceptions of health and work. METHODS Cross-sectional study of female hospital care workers in which health, wo...

AIM To investigate potential differences in sickness absence among public sector employees in Sweden and Denmark, and to what extent a difference was associated with age, gender, physical and psychosocial work environment exposures, lifestyle factors, self-rated health or work ability. METHODS In 2000, two cross-sectional samples of 8562 public sector employees in Sweden and Denmark were surv...

OBJECTIVES To compare sickness absence among diabetic and non-diabetic employees. METHODS A cross sectional case-control study was conducted in a random sample of 400 diabetic employees 21--50 years old from Ljubljana that compared their sickness absence in the year 1996 with sickness absence of non-diabetic employees matched by sex, age, and occupation. Sickness absence was compared in total...

BACKGROUND Evidence based and gender specific knowledge about sickness absence following coronary revascularisation is lacking. The objective was to investigate sickness absence after a first coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) among women and men in a national Swedish study. MATERIALS AND METHODS All patients 30-63 years of age, who underwent a ...

OBJECTIVES To examine the effects of physical work environment on long term sickness absence and to investigate interaction between physical and psychosocial risk factors. DESIGN AND SETTING Prospective cohort study of long term sickness absence among employees in Denmark. PARTICIPANTS 5357 employees interviewed in 2000 about their physical work environment, and various covariates were foll...