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Influence of lifestyle factors on long-term sickness absence among female healthcare workers: a prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: While previous research has indicated that unhealthy lifestyle is associated with sickness absence, this association may be confounded by occupational class. To avoid this potential confounding, we examined the association between lifestyle factors (smoking, leisure-time physical activit...

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Autores principales: Quist, Helle Gram, Thomsen, Birthe L, Christensen, Ulla, Clausen, Thomas, Holtermann, Andreas, Bjorner, Jakob B, Andersen, Lars L
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4216344/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25326786
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1084
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author Quist, Helle Gram
Thomsen, Birthe L
Christensen, Ulla
Clausen, Thomas
Holtermann, Andreas
Bjorner, Jakob B
Andersen, Lars L
author_facet Quist, Helle Gram
Thomsen, Birthe L
Christensen, Ulla
Clausen, Thomas
Holtermann, Andreas
Bjorner, Jakob B
Andersen, Lars L
author_sort Quist, Helle Gram
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: While previous research has indicated that unhealthy lifestyle is associated with sickness absence, this association may be confounded by occupational class. To avoid this potential confounding, we examined the association between lifestyle factors (smoking, leisure-time physical activity and body mass index) and the occurrence of long-term sickness absence (LTSA; more than three consecutive weeks of registered sickness absence) within a cohort of female health care workers. METHODS: A total of 7401 employees filled out a questionnaire about their health behaviour and work environment. Subsequently, they were followed for 12 months in a national register on social transfer payments (DREAM register). Cox’s regression analyses, applied to grouped survival data, were used to estimate the prospective association between these lifestyle factors and LTSA. RESULTS: We found significant associations between all three lifestyle factors and risk of LTSA. The strongest lifestyle factor was current smoking, which increased the risk of LTSA by 35% (95% CI: 1.17-1.54) compared to non- smokers. For body mass index, the risk of LTSA increased with the distance away from 18.5 kg/m(2) in either direction (below 18.5 kg/m(2): HR: 1.32 per kg/m(2); 95% CI. 1.06-1.66; above 18.5 kg/m(2): HR: 1.04 per kg/m(2); 95% CI: 1.03-1.05). In other words, the more underweight or overweight the women were, the higher the risk of LTSA. A dose–response relationship was found between LTSA and leisure-time physical activity (trend test p-value = 0.01), so that increasing physical activity results in decreasing risk of LTSA. CONCLUSION: In female healthcare workers, an unhealthy lifestyle (too high/ too low body mass index, smoking, and low physical activity) is associated with higher risk of LTSA.
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spelling pubmed-42163442014-11-02 Influence of lifestyle factors on long-term sickness absence among female healthcare workers: a prospective cohort study Quist, Helle Gram Thomsen, Birthe L Christensen, Ulla Clausen, Thomas Holtermann, Andreas Bjorner, Jakob B Andersen, Lars L BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: While previous research has indicated that unhealthy lifestyle is associated with sickness absence, this association may be confounded by occupational class. To avoid this potential confounding, we examined the association between lifestyle factors (smoking, leisure-time physical activity and body mass index) and the occurrence of long-term sickness absence (LTSA; more than three consecutive weeks of registered sickness absence) within a cohort of female health care workers. METHODS: A total of 7401 employees filled out a questionnaire about their health behaviour and work environment. Subsequently, they were followed for 12 months in a national register on social transfer payments (DREAM register). Cox’s regression analyses, applied to grouped survival data, were used to estimate the prospective association between these lifestyle factors and LTSA. RESULTS: We found significant associations between all three lifestyle factors and risk of LTSA. The strongest lifestyle factor was current smoking, which increased the risk of LTSA by 35% (95% CI: 1.17-1.54) compared to non- smokers. For body mass index, the risk of LTSA increased with the distance away from 18.5 kg/m(2) in either direction (below 18.5 kg/m(2): HR: 1.32 per kg/m(2); 95% CI. 1.06-1.66; above 18.5 kg/m(2): HR: 1.04 per kg/m(2); 95% CI: 1.03-1.05). In other words, the more underweight or overweight the women were, the higher the risk of LTSA. A dose–response relationship was found between LTSA and leisure-time physical activity (trend test p-value = 0.01), so that increasing physical activity results in decreasing risk of LTSA. CONCLUSION: In female healthcare workers, an unhealthy lifestyle (too high/ too low body mass index, smoking, and low physical activity) is associated with higher risk of LTSA. BioMed Central 2014-10-18 /pmc/articles/PMC4216344/ /pubmed/25326786 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1084 Text en © Quist et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Quist, Helle Gram
Thomsen, Birthe L
Christensen, Ulla
Clausen, Thomas
Holtermann, Andreas
Bjorner, Jakob B
Andersen, Lars L
Influence of lifestyle factors on long-term sickness absence among female healthcare workers: a prospective cohort study
title Influence of lifestyle factors on long-term sickness absence among female healthcare workers: a prospective cohort study
title_full Influence of lifestyle factors on long-term sickness absence among female healthcare workers: a prospective cohort study
title_fullStr Influence of lifestyle factors on long-term sickness absence among female healthcare workers: a prospective cohort study
title_full_unstemmed Influence of lifestyle factors on long-term sickness absence among female healthcare workers: a prospective cohort study
title_short Influence of lifestyle factors on long-term sickness absence among female healthcare workers: a prospective cohort study
title_sort influence of lifestyle factors on long-term sickness absence among female healthcare workers: a prospective cohort study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4216344/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25326786
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1084
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