A Health Impairment Process of Sickness Presenteeism in Norwegian Physicians: The Mediating Role of Exhaustion

Although work factors have been associated with both presenteeism and exhaustion among hospital physicians, we lack knowledge on the dynamic relationship between demands in the work context and presenteeism and how this can be mediated by symptoms of exhaustion when controlling for job resources. The objective of this study is to examine a health impairment process of presenteeism among university hospital physicians. A cross-sectional survey of 545 university hospital physicians in Norway was conducted. Variables included in the model were presenteeism, exhaustion, work-family conflict, role conflict, social support and control over work pace. Findings from structural equation modeling indicated that exhaustion mediates the relationship between job demands and presenteeism. Job resources had no direct effect on presenteeism in the hypothesized model. The variables in the study explained 17% of the variance in presenteeism. The study is one of the first to demonstrate that the relationship between job demands and presenteeism is mediated by exhaustion when controlling for job resources. The results highlight the importance of considering the link between health symptoms and job demands to reduce the negative effects of presenteeism.