BACKGROUND: Working time regimes in Denmark and Finland share many similarities such as nursing personnel working in highly irregular shift systems. Yet, there are also differences for example in policy on when and how the employers are compensated for sickness absence.
OBJECTIVE: We aimed to investigate the association between different working hour characteristics and long-term sickness absence and whether these associations differed within various age groups in two large datasets of nursing personnel from Denmark and Finland.
DESIGN: Based on objective payroll data we used Poisson regression models to calculate incidence rate ratios with 95% confidence intervals to prospectively assess the risk of long-term sickness absence in relation to annual working hour characteristics. The analyses were adjusted for age, sex, short-term sickness absence, and weekly working hours.
SETTING(S): Danish and Finnish nursing personnel.
PARTICIPANTS: 31,729 Danish and 6970 Finnish nursing personnel with ≥ 0.5 Whole-Time Equivalent, registered in the database ≥ 1 year, 18-67 years of age with less than 30 days sickness absence in baseline year 2008.
METHODS: Working hour characteristics were assessed for 2008: time of day; day; evening; night. Duration of shift; long shifts (9-12 h); very long shifts (12-24 h); quick returns (< 11 h between two shifts); long weeks (> 40 h/week); very long weeks (> 48 h/week); and consecutive night shifts (≥ 5 night shifts). Long-term sickness absence was assessed as first incidence of 30 or more consecutive days off in 2009-2015.
RESULTS: The Danish data showed having evening work or five or more consecutive night shifts were associated with higher risk of long-term sickness absence. When excluding pregnant women, night work was also associated to higher risk of sickness absence. When stratifying on age groups, we observed a lower risk of sickness absence in the youngest age groups and a higher risk among the oldest. The Finnish results showed a higher risk of sickness absence when working nights, longs shifts, quick returns, and long work weeks. When stratifying on age groups, the results showed similar tendencies as the Danish.
CONCLUSIONS: The results show that the scheduling of working hours is likely to affect the risk of long-term sickness absence and that the risk differs in different age groups. No consistent picture was found for the results from Denmark and Finland. Differences may be due to contextual differences thus comparison of risk of sickness absence in relation to working hours between countries should be performed with caution. Tweetable abstract: A recent study from Denmark and Finland shows higher risk for long sickness absence among nurses with five or more consecutive night shifts.
