Working time characteristics and long-term sickness absence among Danish and Finnish nurses: A register-based study.

Background: Working time regimes in Denmark and Finland share many similarities such as nursing personnel working in highly irregular shift systems. Yet, there are also differences for example in policy on when and how the employers are compensated for sickness absence.

Objective: We aimed to investigate the association between different working hour characteristics and long-term sickness absence and whether these associations differed within various age groups in two large datasets of nursing personnel from Denmark and Finland.

Working hour characteristics and schedules among nurses in three Nordic countries - a comparative study using payroll data.

Background: Organisation of working hour schedules in the Northern European countries are rather similar. EU countries are obliged to adopt national legislation regarding duration of weekly working hours and rest periods. Yet, working hour characteristics and schedules are likely to differ with respect to starting times and duration depending e.