Open AccessA Japanese Stress Check Program screening tool predicts employee long‐term sickness absence: a prospective study
Author(s) -
Tsutsumi Akizumi,
Shimazu Akihito,
Eguchi Hisashi,
Inoue Akiomi,
Kawakami Norito
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of occupational health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.664
H-Index - 59
ISSN - 1348-9585
DOI - 10.1539/joh.17-0161-oa
Subject(s) - medicine , hazard ratio , proportional hazards model , psychosocial , population , occupational stress , job stress , prospective cohort study , confidence interval , physical therapy , demography , psychology , psychiatry , environmental health , clinical psychology , surgery , job satisfaction , social psychology , sociology
Objectives On December 1, 2015, the Japanese government launched the Stress Check Program, a new occupational health policy to screen employees for high psychosocial stress in the workplace. As only weak evidence exists for the effectiveness of the program, we sought to estimate the risk of stress‐associated longterm sickness absence as defined in the program manual. Methods Participants were 7356 male and 7362 female employees in a financial service company who completed the Brief Job Stress Questionnaire (BJSQ). We followed them for 1 year and used company records to identify employees with sickness absence of 1 month or longer. We defined high‐risk employees using the BJSQ and criteria recommended by the program manual. We used the Cox proportional regression model to evaluate the prospective association between stress and long‐term sickness absence. Results During the followup period, we identified 34 male and 35 female employees who took long‐term sickness absence. After adjustment for age, length of service, job type, position, and post‐examination interview, hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) for incident long‐term sickness absence in high‐stress employees were 6.59 (3.04‐14.25) for men and 2.77 (1.32‐5.83) for women. The corresponding population attributable risks for high stress were 23.8% (10.3‐42.6) for men and 21.0% (4.6‐42.1) for women. Conclusions During the 1‐year follow‐up, employees identified as high stress (as defined by the Stress Check Program manual) had significantly elevated risks for long‐term sickness absence.