ArticleJournal of occupational rehabilitation2022
Sick Leave Due to Stress, What are the Costs for Dutch Employers?
Article in Journal of occupational rehabilitation, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 36 citations in OpenAlex.
- Return-to-work interventions for sick-listed employees with burnout: a systematic review.Occupational and environmental medicine · 2023Pooled it
- A two-armed pragmatic randomized controlled trial comparing the effectiveness of two self-compassion interventions at reducing perceived stress.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Trial
- A mixed methods process evaluation of the implementation of a peer coaching intervention to improve the execution of preventive tasks by occupational physicians.BMC health services research · 2025Trial
- Effects of adding early cooperation and a work-place dialogue meeting to primary care management for sick-listed patients with stress-related disorders: CO-WORK-CARE-Stress - a pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2024Trial
- Article
- Effect of Cognitive Behavioural Stress Management on Return-to-Work Amongst Sick-Listed Employees.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Facilitators and Barriers for a Stepped Care Approach to Promote Return to Work of Employees with Distress: A Multi-perspective Qualitative Study.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Article
- Predicting Emotional Exhaustion with Multimodal Sensor Data During Return-to-Work Trajectories: A 6-Month Longitudinal Study.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Healthcare workers' perspectives on burnout complaints: exploring underlying dynamics using a complex systems approach.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Experiences of returning to work after sick leave due to exhaustion disorder: a qualitative content analysis.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Cardiovascular disease and absenteeism in Dutch occupational health: a retrospective study in a regular working population.Netherlands heart journal : monthly journal of the Netherlands Society of Cardiology and the Netherlands Heart Foundation · 2025Article
- Incidence Rates and Predictors of Recurrent Long-Term Mental Sickness Absence Due to Common Mental Disorders.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Protocol of a randomized controlled multicenter trial investigating process and effectiveness of a participatory organizational approach for preventing work-related mental health problems among employees: vital@work.BMC public health · 2025Article
- RESTART: a stepped-care approach to facilitate return to work for employees with psychological distress: design of a randomized controlled trial.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Article
- Work-related musculoskeletal disorders, fatigue and stress among gas station workers in China: a cross-sectional study.BMJ open · 2024Article
- Gender differences in long term sickness absence.BMC public health · 2024Article
- The development and evaluation of an intervention to promote the uptake of preventive tasks by occupational physicians targeting work-related mental health problems: protocol for the IM-PROmPt-study.BMC public health · 2023Article
- A system science perspective on burn-out: development of an expert-based causal loop diagram.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Purpose Stress-related illnesses are prevalent in Western society, causing sick leave and putting a heavy economic burden on employers and society. For Dutch employers it is particularly relevant to have insight into the costs of absenteeism due to stress-related illness, as they are legally obligated to continue payment of wages. Therefore, this study assessed the duration and costs of an episode of sick leave due to stress-related illness for Dutch employers. Methods Data on sick leave due to various stress-related illnesses were obtained from a nationwide occupational health service database. Stress-related illnesses included tension complaints, burn-out, overexertion, and other reactions to stress. The duration per sick leave episode was estimated in working days, after which the average cost per sick leave period was estimated using age- and gender-specific price weights. Results During the study period, 16,676 employees took 17,338 episodes of sick leave due to stress-related illness. On average, one episode of sick leave lasted 101 working days, for which the costs for the employer were on average €19,151 per worker. Women were responsible for most episodes of sick leave and were on average 37 days more absent per episode compared to men. Moreover, of all kinds of stress-related illnesses, burn-out had the longest duration of sick leave with 313 calendar days and 163 working days, resulting in an average cost of €30,770. Conclusions Sick leave due to stress-related illness places a heavy burden on employers and thus society. Further research should be conducted on how to reduce this burden.
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