Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2007 Oct;61(10):915-20.
doi: 10.1136/jech.2006.055426.

Diagnosis-specific sick leave as a risk marker for disability pension in a Swedish population

Mika Kivimäki  1 , Jane E Ferrie, Jan Hagberg, Jenny Head, Hugo Westerlund, Jussi Vahtera, Kristina Alexanderson
Affiliations

Diagnosis-specific sick leave as a risk marker for disability pension in a Swedish population

Mika Kivimäki et al. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2007 Oct.

Abstract

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 population of one Swedish county aged 16 to 49 years, alive and not in receipt of a disability pension at the end of 1985 (176 629 persons; 51% men).

Main results: To eliminate confounding by sick leaves that translate into a disability pension, the follow up period for disability pension was started five years after the assessment of sick leave. After adjustment for demographic characteristics, the risk of disability pension from mental disorders was 14.1 times higher (95% confidence interval (CI), 12.1 to 16.4) for those with sick leave for mental disorders than for those with no sick leave. The corresponding hazard ratio for sick leave and disability pension within diagnostic category was 5.7 (95% CI, 5.3 to 6.2) for musculoskeletal diseases and 13.0 (7.7 to 21.8) for gastrointestinal diseases. Irrespective of diagnoses, the hazard ratio for sick leave and disability pension was 3.0 (2.9 to 3.1).

Conclusions: Sick leave may provide an important risk marker for identifying groups at high risk of a disability pension, especially for psychiatric diagnoses.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None.

References

    1. Oeppen J, Vaupel J W. Demography. Broken limits to life expectancy. Science 20022961029–1031. - PubMed
    1. Blöndal S, Scarpetta S.The retirement decision in OECD countries. Paris: OECD Publishing, 1999, doi: 10. 1787/565174210530.
    1. Martin P P, Weaver D A. Social security: a program and policy history. Soc Secur Bull 2005661–15. - PubMed
    1. OECD Transforming disability into ability: policies to promote work and income security for disabled people. Paris: OECD Publishing, 200316–176.
    1. Poole C J, Bass C M, Sorrell J E.et al Ill‐health retirement: national rates and updated guidance for occupational physicians. Occup Med (Lond) 200555345–348. - PubMed

Publication types