Relationship between occupational stress and presenteeism status among workers in small and medium-sized enterprises

Abstract

This study aimed to identify characteristics of workers experiencing health problems without a decline in labor productivity to address presenteeism. A cross-sectional analysis was conducted on 554 workers in Japan, with a median age of 43 years. Participants reported any health problems in the past month, along with job stressors, stress responses, social support, and job and life satisfaction using the Brief Job Stress Questionnaire. They were categorized into three groups: “no symptoms,” “pre-presenteeism” (health problems without work impact), and “presenteeism” (health problems with work impact). Results showed that 30.1% were in “prepresenteeism” and 52.0% in “presenteeism.” Stress responses and social support were linked to both “pre-presenteeism” and “presenteeism,” while job stressors and job and life satisfaction were only associated with “presenteeism.” These findings offer insights for preventing presenteeism.

Keywords:

• Efficiency
• job stress
• medium-sized business
• small businesses

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the members who participated in this study as well as the members of the Shimane CoHRE study for their assistance.

Ethical approval

The Research Ethics Committee for Human Subjects of the Faculty of Human Sciences, Shimane University, Shimane, Japan (No. 2022-2) approved the study protocol.

Patient consent

Written informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

Data availability statement

The data underlying this article cannot be shared publicly due to privacy or ethical restrictions.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Shimane Healthcare Business Subsidy from the Shimane Prefectural Government.