Changes in sickness absence
anxiety
DISORDERS, DISEASE, FLU
Producing an intervention that is valued by the workforce and which is able to change people’s attitudes and intentions to seek help is a good achievement. However, actually being able to change people’s future behaviour is a far more difficult task [While the results of the Prevail intervention appear robust there are two surprising elements to the results that we did not expect: (1) the levels of sickness absence at the pre-intervention period were lower for the control group compared to the active group; and (2) levels of sickness absence increased for those in the control group between the pre- and post- intervention periods. We address each of these points in turn.One of the purposes of conducting a RCT is to ensure that the effects of extraneous factors (such as levels of sickness absence pre-intervention) is equated across the two groups (active vs. control) - [While we predicted reductions in sickness absence for those in the active arm of the study, it was expected that those in the control arm would have no change in the levels of sickness absence from pre- to post-intervention (as essentially nothing had happened with the control group and it was work practice as usual). However, levels of sickness absence actually increased. Hence, it would appear that there were factors at play that caused increased levels of sickness absence in the post-intervention period (Dec 2019-Feb 2020) compared to the pre-intervention period (Dec 2018-Feb 2019). While there may be other factors (e.g., increased rates of flu or other seasonal disorders) that were different between these time periods, the most salient factor is the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the first recorded case in Wales was at the end of our data collection period, in late February 2020, concerns about the on-coming pandemic and the impact of this internationally were evident much earlier as the disease spread across the world. This may have impacted anxiety levels and decisions to try and avoid busy workplaces at such a worrying time.While the causes of the increase in rates of sickness absence in the control arm of the study are, at best, speculation, these unexpected increases in sick leave show the value of the RCT and of collecting pre-and post-intervention data to help with the interpretation of effects. If it is indeed the case that rates of sickness absence were higher in the data collection period post-intervention for the workforce as a whole (mimicking the effects in the control group), then the 