Mental and physical health-related functioning mediates between psychological job demands and sickness absence among nurses

Abstract

Aims: To investigate whether health-related functioning mediates the effect of psychological job demands on sickness absence in nurses. Background: Nurses face high job demands that can have adverse health effects resulting in sickness absence. Design: Prospective cohort study with 1-year follow-up. Methods: Data for 2964 Norwegian nurses were collected in the period 2008-2010. At baseline, psychological job demands were measured with the Demand-Control-Support Questionnaire. Health-related functioning was assessed by the Mental Composite Score and the Physical Composite Score of the SF-12 Health Survey (2nd version). Sickness absence (no = 0, yes = 1) was self-reported at 1-year follow-up. Interaction and mediation analyses were conducted stratified by tenure (6 years) as a registered nurse. Results: A total of 2180 nurses (74%) with complete data were eligible for analysis. A significant three-way interaction between job demands, control and support was found in newly licensed nurses (tenure