BACKGROUND Results from observational studies suggest that people who drink little or no alcohol are less healthy than medium drinkers. This has been demonstrated for many different measures of health, including sick leave. However, whether these associations are causal or due to confounding remains to be clarified. The aim of this study was to use a discordant twin design to determine whether ...

BACKGROUND To examine labour market participation and long-term sick leave following a diagnosis with myasthenia gravis (MG) compared with the general Danish population and for specific subgroups of MG patients. METHODS A nationwide matched cohort study from 1997 to 2011 using data from population-based medical and social registries. The study includes 330 MG patients aged 18 to 65 years old ...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether the day-by-day postoperative recovery differs between women undergoing subtotal and total abdominal hysterectomy, and to analyse factors associated with postoperative recovery and sick leave. DESIGN A prospective, open, randomised multicentre trial. SETTING Seven hospitals and one private clinic in the south-east of Sweden. POPULATION Two-hundred women sched...

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to evaluate the relative contribution of individual characteristics, lifestyle factors, work-related risk factors, and work ability on the occurrence of short (<2 weeks), moderate (2-12 weeks), and long (>12 weeks) durations of sickness absence. METHODS Altogether 5867 Dutch construction workers with complete sick leave registration were followed from...

OBJECTIVE Mental health problems often affect functioning to such an extent that they result in sick leave. The worldwide reported prevalence of mental health problems in the working population is 10%-18%. In developed countries, mental health problems are one of the main grounds for receiving disability benefits. In up to 90% of cases the cause is stress-related, and health-care utilisation is...

A growing economic literature studies the optimal design of social insurance systems and empirical identification welfare-relevant externalities. In this paper, we test whether mandating employee access to paid sick leave has reduced influenza-like-illness (ILI) transmission rates as well pneumonia influenza (P&I) mortality in United States. Using uniquely compiled data from administrative sour...

BACKGROUND Long-term sick leave has considerably negative impact on the individual and society. Hence, the need to identify effective occupational rehabilitation programs is pressing. In Norway, group based occupational rehabilitation programs merging patients with different diagnoses have existed for many years, but no rigorous evaluation has been performed. The described randomized controlled...

BACKGROUND Considering the high costs of sick leave and the consequences of sick leave for employees, an early return-to-work of employees with mental disorders is very important. Therefore, a workplace intervention is developed based on a successful return-to-work intervention for employees with low back pain. The objective of this paper is to present the design of a randomized controlled tria...

The paper examines whether a worker’s sick absence behaviour influences the risk of becoming unemployed. Swedish panel data are used to estimate the relationship between the incidence and duration of sick leave and subsequent unemployment. The results indicate that an increase in the number of sick leaves as well as an increase in the duration of sick spells is associated with higher risk of un...

BACKGROUND Chronic low back pain (LBP) is a major public and occupational health problem, which is associated with very high costs. Although medical costs for chronic LBP are high, most costs are related to productivity losses due to sick leave. In general, the prognosis for return to work (RTW) is good but a minority of patients will be absent long-term from work. Research shows that work rela...