Psychological Disorders Affects Sickness Absenteeism in Software Industries

Abstract

The software industries give employment opportunity to more than 5 trillion people. They are working more hours per day than in any other profession. The prolong working hours including night shifts of employees working in software industries makes them prone to develop psychological disorders. The study conducted to explore the prevalence of psychological disorders like stress, anxiety and depression among IT professionals. Studies have not been conducted to find out the association between these disorders and Sickness absenteeism. To find out the prevalence of Psychological disorders, its association with Sickness absenteeism among Software professionals. Randomly selected 310 subjects from 20 IT companies at Techno Park, Trivandrum, Kerala. Semi-structured questionnaire, Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) was used for the study. Chi² test, t test were done to compare continuous variables. Binary logistic regression was used to test the strength of associations of independent variables. The odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was obtained. Anxiety was the most prevalent psychological disorder among software professionals followed by depression and stress. Those who had taken sick leaves above 70% had anxiety 64.2 %, had depression 57.8 % and stress 55.3%. In logistic regression only anxiety and depression were found to be the predictors of significant sickness absenteeism which was quantified with help of Bradfords Factor score. The result showed that anxiety was the most prevalent psychological disorder followed by depression and stress. Psychological disorders like stress, anxiety and depression were also seen more among female employees than males.