Greater Emotional and Psychological Well-being Are Associated With Reduced Employee Self-report Illness-Related Absenteeism: A Multi-Industry, Cross-sectional Study Conducted During COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship that emotional, psychological, and social well-being has with self-reported illness-related absenteeism.

Methods: This study examines the relationship between three dimensions of well-being (emotional, psychological, and social) and self-report illness-related absenteeism among 133 workers spanning multiple industries across 16 different companies. This secondary, cross-sectional data were analyzed using multiple linear regression.

Results: As hypothesized, emotional well-being and psychological well-being were found to be negatively associated with absenteeism, with emotional well-being being the stronger predictor. Contrary to our hypothesis, we found that social well-being was not associated with absenteeism among workers.

Conclusions: Employee emotional well-being and psychological well-being are associated with self-reported illness-related absenteeism. Future work should explore causal relationships between these constructs.