Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38780861›Full record

ArticleThe European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care2025

Workload and short sickness absences in a cohort of Finnish hospital employees.

Tero Kuusi, Martti Kulvik, Mikko Härmä, Annina Ropponen

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In one paragraph

Article in The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Tero KuusiEtla Economic Research, Helsinki, Finland. tero.kuusi@etla.fi.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3582-7043
Martti KulvikEtla Economic Research, Helsinki, Finland.
Mikko HärmäThe Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland.
Annina RopponenThe Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland.

Funding

Työsuojelurahasto 200103
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

This article used register data on day-to-day working hours of hospital employees combined with patient characteristics at work unit (wards) level to measure workload and its implications for short, self-certified sickness absences. We measured statistically the average nursing treatment burden of different patient mixes in hospital wards, and then analyzed the overall workload (intensity) of working days by comparing it to the actual available nursing workforce. We found that a significant part of the workload variation occurred between working days, and it was related to unexpected changes in the number of employees. In atypical situations a long work shift was associated with caring for patients with fewer resources. The high workload of a day increased the risk of short sickness absences along the following 3-week period. The results show that managing short-term workload variability should be a key aim from the perspective of well-being at work, and that combining different data sources can provide novel, important insights to the measurement of workload.

Indexed as

AbsenteeismNursing Staff, HospitalPersonnel, HospitalSick LeaveWorkloadAdultFemaleFinlandHumansMaleMiddle AgedEfficiencyHealth careOccupational healthWorking time featuresWorkload

Identifiers

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.