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Sickness absence among women and men in the police: A systematic literature review

Section of Personal Injury Prevention, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

	Abstract

Aim: The aim of the present study was to carry out a systematic literature review of all scientific studies on sickness absence among women and men in the police in order to obtain a knowledge base for the introduction of relevant preventive actions against the high sick-leave rates among police women in Sweden. Methods: Publications with data on sickness absence in the police published in peer-reviewed scientific journals in English, Danish, Norwegian or Swedish were systematically searched for in literature databases and reference lists. Identified publications were assessed for relevance. A set procedure was used to extract information from each study included. Results: The majority of the 21 included articles were from the USA or Europe. Most studies were published from 1990 and onwards. Sick-leave measures used in the different studies varied considerably. Four studies presented overall data on sickness absence by gender: three found higher rates among female officers than among male officers, and one found similar rates. Results also varied for more specific aspects. Conclusions: The research on sickness absence in the police is very scarce, especially concerning gender differences. The sick-leave measures used were too inconsistent or vaguely described to allow comparisons between studies. There was a tendency for higher sickness absence among women police; however, there is an obvious need for more studies in this area.

Key Words: Gender, literature review, police, sick leave, sickness absence

First published on January 5, 2009, doi:10.1177/1403494808098508

Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 2009;37:310.

A more recent version of this article appeared on May 1, 2009


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