Sickness Absence from Work among Persons with New Physician-Diagnosed Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: A Population-Based Matched-Cohort Study

BACKGROUND Carpal tunnel syndrome is common among employed persons. Data on sickness absence from work in relation to carpal tunnel syndrome have been usually based on self-report and derived from clinical or occupational populations. We aimed to determine sickness absence among persons with physician-diagnosed carpal tunnel syndrome as compared to the general population. METHODS In Skåne region in Sweden we identified all subjects, aged 17-57 years, with new physician-made diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome during 5 years (2004-2008). For each subject we randomly sampled, from the general population, 4 matched reference subjects without carpal tunnel syndrome; the two cohorts comprised 5456 and 21,667 subjects, respectively (73% women; mean age 43 years). We retrieved social insurance register data on all sickness absence periods longer than 2 weeks from 12 months before to 24 months after diagnosis. Of those with carpal tunnel syndrome 2111 women (53%) and 710 men (48%) underwent surgery within 24 months of diagnosis. We compared all-cause sickness absence and analyzed sickness absence in conjunction with diagnosis and surgery. RESULTS Mean number of all-cause sickness absence days per each 30-day period from 12 months before to 24 months after diagnosis was significantly higher in the carpal tunnel syndrome than in the reference cohort. A new sickness absence period longer than 2 weeks in conjunction with diagnosis was recorded in 12% of the women (n = 492) and 11% of the men (n = 170) and with surgery in 53% (n = 1121) and 58% (n = 408) of the surgically treated, respectively; median duration in conjunction with surgery was 35 days (IQR 27-45) for women and 41 days (IQR 28-50) for men. CONCLUSIONS Persons with physician-diagnosed carpal tunnel syndrome have substantially more sickness absence from work than age and sex-matched persons from the general population from 1 year before to 2 years after diagnosis. Gender differences were small.