05, adjusted for age and sex Within workers with a good work ability, the presence of lack of job control was associated with a 23% increase in likelihood of productivity loss at work. Within find more workers with a decreased work ability, lack of job control had a

38% increase in the occurrence of productivity loss at work. Discussion Decreased work ABT-263 solubility dmso ability showed statistical significant associations with productivity loss at work, especially in combination with lack of job control. In other words, job control seems to act as a buffer in the association between decreased work ability and productivity loss at work. Some limitations must be considered in this study. First of all, the cross-sectional SB431542 design of the study does not permit further explanation of the causal relationship between determinants and productivity loss at work. The results of this study do not indicate whether productivity

loss at work was a result of decreased work ability or decreased work ability was a result of lack of productivity. The cross-sectional design also limits insight into the ‘lag time’ between decreased work ability and productivity loss at work. It could be that recent decreased work ability has a stronger effect on productivity loss at work because a worker with a longer period of decreased work ability could have changed working tasks or found coping techniques to remain productive despite decreased work ability. Secondly, a subjective measure of productivity loss at work was used. Since objective measures of productivity at work are rarely

FER available or difficult to access, self-reports to estimate the decrease in productivity are more common (Koopmanschap et al. 2005; Burdorf 2007). One study showed significant correlations between self-reported productivity and objective work output (r = 0.48) among floor layers (Meerding et al. 2005). Nevertheless, the current study was done in a large array of different work settings and only used the quantity question of the QQ method. A measure of productivity loss at work concerning the last workday was used, because a longer time span may be influenced by self-reports. A disadvantage of a time-span of 1 day is that it does not take into account the expected fluctuations in productivity loss within workers across workdays. This unknown daily fluctuation will have contributed to random measurement error and thus attenuated the observed associations. Although participants were informed that all information would be handled completely anonymous, it also cannot be discarded that some information bias might have occurred, for example due to reluctance among participants to report reduced productivity at work due to fear of negative consequences. Thirdly, a low response may also be associated with the presence of productivity loss at work. The response for the productivity item varied from 9 to 96% across companies.