This study measured work limitations and work adjustments among chronically
ill employees with regard to three distinct job characteristics: physical
work demands, cognitive work demands and social work demands. The study
presents findings from an organizational-based survey, from which 610
respondents reported managing employees with a chronic illness. These
included arthritis, musculoskeletal pain, diabetes, asthma, migraine,
heart disease, irritable bowel syndrome and depression. The results
indicate that depression had the largest impact in all three work demand
categories, while musculoskeletal pain principally affected physical
work demands and migraine and diabetes largely affected cognitive work
demands. For other chronic illnesses, it was the generic symptoms of
the illness (for example, fatigue) that resulted in a work limitation,
rather than the specific nature of the illness itself. Employer work
adjustments were available to those people with illnesses that required
a physical work adjustment (for example, musculoskeletal pain). For
other chronic illnesses, with the exception of depression, disclosing
an illness was the strongest predictor for work adjustments in cognitive
tasks and the provision of social support. Those with depression were
least likely to receive a cognitive work adjustment, indicating either
a low disclosure rate in this group or that employers' perceptions of
depression may be a barrier to providing suitable work adjustments.
Munir F, Jones D, Leka S, Griffiths A. Int J Rehabil Res. 2005 Jun;28(2):111-7.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15900180&query_hl=2
Credit: All abstracts retrieved from PubMed, developed by the National
Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National
Library of Medicine (NLM).
|