New study says employer supports improve function and productivity of employees with arthritis

A new study about workplace supports for people with arthritis in Canada, suggests that many people don’t feel the need for frequent help and that the benefits and adjustments needed, ranging from extended health benefits to flexible working hours, are often already being offered by employers and that those people who can access them often have better outcomes.

The study, conducted by the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) based in Ontario, Canada, looked at the needs for, availability and use of benefits and accommodations in a group of 219 people who were 25 or older, living in Ontario or British Columbia, and had a diagnosis of osteoarthritis or inflammatory arthritis.

The study, published in Arthritis Care and Research, says that although treatment options had improved, and symptoms of pain and stiffness were often intermittent, the chronic condition of arthritis can result in missed meetings, late starts, and unproductive or missed days when a flare occurs. It goes on to suggest that without workplace support, a diagnosis of arthritis can even end up forcing people out of a job.

Dr Monique Gignac, senior scientist and lead author of the study says, “Our study suggests that providing benefits and accommodations to workers improves work participation. It also suggests that providing such support is unlikely to drain company resources.”

Participants in the study varied in their health conditions; though all had arthritis, some experienced no disability, while others experienced a fair amount of pain, fatigue and functional limitations. The study focussed on Canadian workplaces, and offered interesting results.

Only a small proportion reported not being offered any benefits or accommodations (5.5%) and one quarter to nearly two thirds of respondents said they didn’t need various types of benefits or accommodations for their arthritis, a sign that not everyone with arthritis finds it disabling.

The study also looked at the work outcomes of people who used their workplace supports compared to those who said they would like to use supports but they were unavailable. Among the findings were:

• While most people didn’t need short-term leave, those who needed it and used it reported fewer work limitations, job disruptions, productivity losses and reduced hours, compared to people who needed short-term leave but didn’t use it.
• Supports such as special equipment, work-at-home arrangements, extended health benefits and short-term leave were associated with people less likely to reduce their working hours.
• Flexible hours were related to fewer job disruptions but made little difference to other types of outcomes.
• People who needed and used work-at-home arrangements reported less job disruption, productivity loss and reduced hours compared to those who would have like these arrangements but couldn’t use them, largely because they were unavailable. What’s more, using work-at-home arrangements seemed to put people on par with healthier participants who reported not needing arrangements.

Although it looks like none of the accommodations examined were associated with reduced absenteeism, that may be due to how absenteeism was measured. Participants had to answer yes or no to a question about whether they were absent even for a day in the previous six months due to arthritis.

“If respondents were absent for just one day, that shouldn’t necessarily been seen as undesirable,” says Dr Gignac. “People with arthritis often tell us that to manage their disease, they need occasional absences for treatment and ongoing medical monitoring and tests. We need to better understand this ‘good’ absenteeism because it may help people remain working in the long term.”

Because symptoms of arthritis tend to flare, the study noted that many people will not use benefits and accommodations all of the time, but having policies in place can make an important difference.

“There are things employers can do to help, and they’re not things employers have to design from scratch,” Dr Gignas continues. “A lot of these things are policies or practices that companies are doing for other employees, especially as people age and start to have health problems. But what we’re finding is they can make a difference to people with arthritis as well.”

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