The relationship between stress and absenteeism

BACKGROUND OF STUDY: Three hundred and sixty three subjects from various civil service organisations were administered the SCOPE-i (Stress, Coping and Personality Inventory) as part of the Institute of Mental Health's efforts to promote mental health in the workplace.

This study examines the relationship between stress-related factors and absenteeism. Absenteeism is measured by the number of days of medical leave taken (MC) and self-report of minor illnesses (MI) which are not severe enough to warrant the coverage of a medical certificate.

In this study, we are interested in the differences between MI and MC, and their respective relationships with stress-related factors. We hypothesised that MI, rather than MC, is more related to poor workplace conditions. The findings of this study support this hypothesis. Thus if workplace environment is stressful, people are still likely to come to work despite their illness. An interesting observation in this study is the different ways in which environmental stressors and psychosocial aspects of the workplace environment affect the MC variable. Individuals are more likely to take MC when the environmental stressors are high (i.e., poor lighting, uncomfortable temperatures, etc) as compared to poor psychosocial environmental conditions (e.g., work overload, high organisational tension, career limitations and high personal constraints). On the other hand, when faced with poor psychosocial environmental conditions, MI increases instead of MC.

These findings have implications on the types of changes in a workplace which employers should make in order to decrease MC and improve physical well-being. In addition, the study shows the usefulness of MI in future studies as a dependent variable.