Psychosocial factors associated with sickness absence in employees at a federal public university.

Introduction: There is a need to understand which factors are associated with sickness absence in the context of public service in order to guide efforts to prevent illness in workers.

Objectives: We investigated whether lifestyle, locus of health control, work-related stress, and self-perception of physical and mental health are associated with sickness absence from a biopsychosocial perspective.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study using an online questionnaire and the participants comprised 898 employees at a federal university.