Research project SO/02/019 (Research action SO)
Absenteeism on the grounds of illness or accident should be held in relation to health problems, economic problems involving productivity and other problems involving the consumption of medicines. The management of absenteeism due to illness and accident requires empirical models to be drawn up on the basis of multivariate, prospective epidemiological studies that take into account working environment variables (working environment model), personal characteristic variables (psycho-socio-demographic model), behavioural variables (behaviour model) and, finally, biological variables (biological model).
This proposal offers a response to present-day problems relating to social cohesion in the working environment by focusing on the psychosocial factors of the working environment that absenteeism feeds upon.
In Belgium, the Occupational Illness Fund (Fonds des Maladies Professionnelles, FMP) pays out some 15 billion Belgian francs annually on treatments. Annual expenditure on workplace accidents is evaluated at 35 billion francs. In addition, these direct costs are doubled by a series of indirect costs worth an equivalent amount.
Although the degree of absenteeism due to illness or accident has already been demonstrated, it is still worth making the point that the rare studies of absenteeism predictors to have been conducted, have involved groups of people with pronounced similarities (e.g. civil servants, abattoir workers, postal staff). The predictors have rarely been studied from a multi-factor perspective that integrates bio-clinical, socio-demographic, psychological and psychosocial working environment variables. Finally, the internationalisation of labour can also affect absences due to illness, but to our knowledge has yet to be the subject of any prospective study.
Very recently, models showing stress at work have been proposed, including the model by Robert Karasek that defines stress at work by adding together the major psychological constraints accompanied by lack of scope for decision-making - a model seen by some as additive, but by others as multiplicative. The management of stress in particular and of absenteeism generally requires models to be drawn up that take different variables into account. Nevertheless, more complex predictive models have been the subject of empirical trials in recent years. These studies have shown how a person’s post or grade independently predicts absenteeism and that lack of scope in decision-making significantly increases absenteeism. Nevertheless, these models only relate to civil servants and need to be tested in private industries.
BELSTRESS, a study report published in 1999, made it possible to produce preliminary results using a limited number of variables and absenteeism involving only a proportion of the cohort of men and women studied. Already, it has shown the importance of function as well as decision-making scope, social support at work and the notion of stress at work in the risk of absenteeism on account of illness.
THE WORKING THEORIES ARE AS FOLLOWS:
1. Production of a complex multivariate model of absenteeism due to illness or accident is possible on the basis of environmental variables from work, behavioural variables, personality trait variables and, finally, bio-clinical variables.
2. The multivariate predictive model of absenteeism may be different for short-term absences (1 to 7 days and 8 to 27 days) and long-term absences (28 days or more).
3. The predictive absenteeism model will be applied to men and to women, to private companies and to civil servants (local authorities), as well as to subjects holding different grades (ISCO 88).
4. A model will also be proposed concerning repeated absences.
5. The model will also take account of interactions between variables (effect-altering variables).
6. Finally, the latest developments in our post-industrial society, i.e. the globalisation by association of companies observed in all areas and the influence of perceptions of this globalisation on absences due to illness, has not been studied to date in relation to the principal male and female subject cohorts, hence ...
7. A heightened perception of powerlessness resulting from economic globalisation that increases short-term absences as well as repeated absences.
Finally, in order to study the solidity of a model, data concerning the second year of absenteeism will be requested from all companies who furnished data concerning the first year of absences due to illness.
The specific PROJECT tasks are as follows:
A. Team under Professor M. Kornitzer (ULB)
A.1 Cleaning of data from the first year of absenteeism monitoring and data storage on computer at the Department of Epidemiology and Health Promotion within the School of Public Health at ULB.
A.2 Statistical analyses and interim report.
A.3. Gathering of data from a second year of absence monitoring, cleaning and storage on computer.
A.4. Statistical analyses and final report putting forward the predictive absenteeism model.
B. Team under Professor G. De Backer (UZ. Ghent)
B.1 Dispatch of monitoring data from year one stored on computer at the Department of Epidemiology and Health Promotion within the School of Public Health at ULB.
B.2 Gathering of data from a second year of absence monitoring, cleaning and dispatch to the Department of Epidemiology and Health Promotion within the School of Public Health at ULB.
B.3 Statistical analyses and final report putting forward the predictive absenteeism model.
Modèles prédictifs belges de l'absentéisme pour cause de maladie ou d'accident : résumé
Bruxelles : Politique scientifique fédérale, 2003 (SP1223)
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Belgische predictieve modellen van absenteïsme wegens ziekte of ongeval : samenvatting
Brussel : Federaal wetenschapsbeleid, 2003 (SP1224)
[To download]
Belgian predictive models of absenteeism for sickness or accident : summary
Brussels : Federal Science Policy Office, 2003 (SP1225)
[To download]
Bibliografic references :
