Psychosocial Well-Being Index and Sick Leave in the Workplace: a Structural Equation Modelling of Wittyfit Data (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Psychosocial well-being, which assesses emotional, psychological, social, and collective well-being, could help measure risk and duration of sick leave in workers. OBJECTIVE This study aims to build a structural equation model of a Psychosocial Well-Being Index based on 10 psychosocial factors and investigate its association with sick leave. METHODS Data of workers using Wittyfit was collected in 2018. Psychosocial factors (job satisfaction, atmosphere, recognition, work-life balance, meaning, work organization, values, workload, autonomy, and stress) were self-assessed using health-related surveys, while sick leave records were provided by volunteer companies. RESULTS A total of 1,399 workers were included in the study (mean age: 39.4±9.4, mean seniority: 9.2±7.7, 49.8% of women, 12.0% managers). The prevalence of absenteeism was 34.5%, with an average of 8.48±28.7 days of sick leave per worker. Structural equation modelling facilitated computation of workers’ psychosocial well-being index (AIC: 123,016.2, BIC: 123,231.2, RMSEA: 0.03). All factors, except workload (p=.9), were influential, with meaning (β=0.72, 95% CI 0.69 to 0.74), values (0.69, 0.67 to 0.70) and job satisfaction (0.64, 0.61 to 0.66) being the main drivers (P<.001). Overall, psychosocial well-being was found to be a protective factor for sick leave, with a 2% decreased risk (OR=0.98, 95% CI 0.98 to 0.99, P<.001) and duration (IRR=0.98, 95% CI 0.97 to 0.99, P<.001) per psychosocial well-being index point. CONCLUSIONS The psychosocial well-being index provides a measure of psychosocial well-being and helps predict sick leave in the workplace. This new indicator could be used to analyze the association between psychosocial well-being and other health outcomes. CLINICALTRIAL Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT02596737.