The Impact of Psychosocial Work Environments and Individual Factors on Self- and Doctor Certified Sick Leave

Extending the understanding of individual and psychosocial factors underlying doctor- and self-certified sick leave amongst Norwegian workers was the main objective of this study. Whilst Norway is at the forefront of work environmental standards, the rates of, and expenditure on, sick leave are amongst the highest. To explain sick leave, the Job Demands-Resource model was used as a theoretical framework. The study had a quantitative cross-sectional design, based on secondary data collected by EBHR, from a Norwegian organisation (N=1904). Employees reporting high degrees of job resources were less prone to report self-certified sick leave mediated by work engagement, while employees reporting high job demands reported higher rates of self- and doctor certified sick leave mainly mediated by exhaustion. Younger employees were more prone to experience exhaustion, while their older coworkers reported higher rates of doctor-certified sick leave. Female employees reported a higher degree of sick leave than male employees. The findings indicate that an understanding of the relationship between psychosocial work environments, individual factors, and sick leave may aid the development of more effective interventions preventing or reducing sick leave. In particular by identifying which processes impact self- and doctor certified sick leave, as well as variations for age and gender