BACKGROUND Sweden has a public and easily accessible sickness insurance. Research shows, however, downsides to taking sick leave. Both short and longer periods of sick leave have been seen to increase the risk for subsequent work absence. The aim of this study was to investigate whether there was an association between sick leave claimed in 1993 and work absence in the subsequent 15 years, i.e....

BACKGROUND Several studies have shown considerable differences in the way that physicians prescribe sick leave. The aim of this study was to examine the sick leave prescribing practices of occupational health care physicians and factors affecting these practices. METHODS A questionnaire study with 19 hypothetical patient cases was conducted among 356 Finnish occupational health care physician...

OBJECTIVES Research has shown that individuals reporting a low level of adjustment latitude, defined as having few possibilities to temporarily adjust work demands to illness, have a higher risk of sick leave. To what extent lack of adjustment latitude influences the individual when making the decision to take sick leave is unknown. We hypothesize that ill individuals are more likely to take si...

OBJECTIVES To analyze the duration of non-work-related sick leave due to anxiety disorders and to identify demographic, occupational and clinical variables that may contribute to its prediction. METHODS We performed a prospective cohort study of 1,161 workers with an episode of non-work-related sick leave due to an anxiety disorder, belonging to the insured population of a mutual insurance co...

BACKGROUND In previous studies the authors have found sick leave to be a predictor of future sick leave, unemployment and disability pension. Although sick leave reflects underlying health problems, some studies have suggested that sick leave may have consequences beyond the consequences of the underlying illness. However, few studies have aimed at studying consequences of sick leave while adju...

OBJECTIVE To investigate diagnosis-specific sick leave as a risk marker for subsequent disability pension. DESIGN A prospective population based cohort study. Exposure to a new medically certified sick leave episode of more than seven days by diagnosis during 1985 was examined in relation to incident cause-specific disability pension through 1996. PARTICIPANTS The total non-retired populati...

OBJECTIVES To investigate occupational factors associated with sick leave over a 4-year period in Australian employees. METHODS Longitudinal data (self-report) from 2861 Australian full-time employees (69.4% male) were used. Occupational factors and relevant covariates were assessed at baseline with sick leave assessed yearly over a 4-year period. The data were analyzed using multinomial logi...

OBJECTIVE Common mental disorders (CMDs) are among the leading causes of sick leave, and more knowledge on factors related to work participation and return-to-work (RTW) in CMDs is needed. The aim of this study was to investigate RTW-expectations and illness perceptions as predictors of benefit recipiency in CMDs. DESIGN Study participants were enrolled in a randomised controlled trial and re...