OBJECTIVE To determine whether health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and postoperative recovery of women who undergo abdominal hysterectomy in a fast-track program under general anesthesia (GA) differ from women who receive spinal anesthesia with intrathecal morphine (SA). DESIGN Secondary analysis from an open randomized controlled multicenter study. SETTING Five hospitals in south-east S...

BACKGROUND Registered nurses at primary health care centres in Sweden receive about 20 million telephone calls annually. Questions related to sick leave occur regularly. Previous studies conclude that those calls often are perceived as problematic. The aim of this study was to explore factors associated with problems regarding sick leave questions in telephone nursing. METHODS A questionnaire...

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to describe the somatic, social, psychological, and work-related factors that characterize participants with a duration of sick leave over and under one year. METHODS During 2012, 181 patients on long-term sick leave were consecutively recruited and asked to answer an extensive survey. Several outcomes were reported, addressing work-related factors and somatic, psyc...

This study measures the effect of case management interview (CMI) on 1,000 long-term sick-listed employees' probability of returning to work. In contrast to previous studies, we use instrumental variables to correct for selection effects in CMI. Using a competing hazard rate model, we find that CMI increases the probability of returning to work for the pre-sick leave employer, but has no effect...

PURPOSE The objectives were to identify work-related stress, and to analyse whether or not work-related stress served to predict sick-leave in a population of employed women who saw a doctor due to musculoskeletal or mental disorder at primary health care centres. METHODS This prospective study was based on data collected with the Work Stress Questionnaire (WSQ) at baseline 2008 and at follow...

OBJECTIVE To follow up 2 rehabilitation strategies for patients with chronic pain: a 2-day interdisciplinary team assessment followed by either (i) a 4-week outpatient multimodal rehabilitation programme, or (ii) a subsequent rehabilitation plan. METHODS After a 2-day interdisciplinary team assessment at our pain rehabilitation clinic, 296 consecutive patients were selected to undergo either ...

BACKGROUND It is estimated that hearing difficulties will be one of the top ten leading burdens of disease by 2030. Knowledge of mortality among individuals on sick leave or disability pension due to hearing diagnoses is virtually non-existent. We aimed prospectively to examine the associations of diagnosis-specific sick leave and disability pension due to different otoaudiological diagnoses wi...

Background. Severe obesity is a risk factor for lower participation in paid work, but whether employment increases and sick leave decreases after obesity surgery is not well documented. Methods. We assessed 224 Norwegian patients with severe obesity (mean age: 40; mean BMI: 49; 61% female) regarding employment status (working versus not working) and the number of days of sick leave during the p...

OBJECTIVE To analyse sick leave in women at risk of primary hyperparathyroidism before its diagnosis. DESIGN Case-control study nested within a screened cohort of postmenopausal women. Cases were women with hyperparathyroidism without prior knowledge of their disease and no traditional symptoms or complications. Controls were women from the screened population without hyperparathyroidism. S...