Tímarit hjúkrunarfræðinga - 2022, Qupperneq 54

The development of workload, sickness absence
and of mental and physical health symptoms
among care workers in 12 Icelandic municipalities
during 2010-2019 is studied and possible
connections to the economic crisis of 2008. The
study also aims to learn from the 2008 crisis for the
one we now face due to COVID-19 pandemic.
We use long-term panel data in which the same
individuals were followed in the years 2010, 2011,
2013, 2015 and 2019. The analysis is based on
answers of 108 employees who responded to all
questionnaires. Of these, 84.3% were women
and 15.7% were men, which well reflects the
gender division in the municipalities’ care work.
Significance was measured by the Cochran’s Q test
for repeat measurements, the Pearson chi-square
test and an Anova for repeated measurements.
The crisis we are facing due to COVID-19 pandemic
is likely to have a negative impact on the well-
being of certain groups of employees a few years
after we have tackled the pandemic. Therefore, it
is important to urge those responsible for nursing
and occupational health to be vigilant about
the work-related well-being of staff because of
the impact that the economic crisis caused by
COVID-19 pandemic may have.
Aim
Results
ENGLISH SUMMARY
Sickness and sickness absence among care
workers in 12 Icelandic municipalities
– What can we learn from the 2008 crisis?
Method
Economic crisis, nursing, self-assessed health,
sick leave, workload.
Correspondent:
glr@hi.is
Conclusion
Keywords
Sickness and sickenss absence among care workers
Rafnsdottir, G.L., and Sigursteinsdottir, H.
Care worker’s self-assed wellbeing measured as
mental and physical symptoms, sick leave, doctor
visits and attendance at work due to workload,
deteriorated following the economic collapse
of 2008. Significantly more employees reported
coming sick to work due to workload in the later
submissions of the questionnaire than in the early
submissions. More people experienced mental and
physical health deterioration, and there was a link
between high workload and poorer mental health.
Same pattern was observed in women and men.
There were significant changes for the worse for 8
of the 14 symptoms examined.