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
. 2018 May 9;8(5):e020491.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-020491.

Sickness absence as a predictor of disability retirement in different occupational classes: a register-based study of a working-age cohort in Finland in 2007-2014

Laura Salonen  1 , Jenni Blomgren  2 , Mikko Laaksonen  3 , Mikko Niemelä  1   2
Affiliations

Sickness absence as a predictor of disability retirement in different occupational classes: a register-based study of a working-age cohort in Finland in 2007-2014

Laura Salonen et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Objectives: The objective of the study was to examine diagnosis-specific sickness absences of different lengths as predictors of disability retirement in different occupational classes.

Design: Register-based prospective cohort study up to 8 years of follow-up.

Participants: A 70% random sample of the non-retired Finnish population aged 25-62 at the end of 2006 was included (n=1 727 644) and linked to data on sickness absences in 2005 and data on disability retirement in 2007-2014.

Main outcome measures: Cox proportional hazards regression was utilised to analyse the association of sickness absence with the risk of all-cause disability retirement during an 8-year follow-up.

Results: The risk of disability retirement increased with increasing lengths of sickness absence in all occupational classes. A long sickness absence was a particularly strong predictor of disability retirement in upper non-manual employees as among those with over 180 sickness absence days the HR was 9.19 (95% CI 7.40 to 11.40), but in manual employees the HR was 3.51 (95% CI 3.23 to 3.81) in men. Among women, the corresponding HRs were 7.26 (95% CI 6.16 to 8.57) and 3.94 (95% CI 3.60 to 4.30), respectively. Adjusting for the diagnosis of sickness absence partly attenuated the association between the length of sickness absence and the risk of disability retirement in all employed groups.

Conclusions: A long sickness absence is a strong predictor of disability retirement in all occupational classes. Preventing the accumulation of sickness absence days and designing more efficient policies for different occupational classes may be crucial to reduce the number of transitions to early retirement due to disability.

Keywords: public health; social medicine.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
HRs for the risk of all-cause disability retirement in 2007–2014 with their 95% CIs according to the length of all-cause SA in different occupational classes in men and women. Upper non-manual workers with no sickness allowance days is the reference group. HRs on the logarithmic scale. All adjusted for all sociodemographic variables. SA, sickness absence.
Figure 2
Figure 2
HRs for the risk of all-cause disability retirement in 2007–2014 with their 95% CI according to the length of diagnosis-specific SA in different occupational classes in men and women. Upper non-manual workers with zero sickness allowance days is the reference group. HRs on the logarithmic scale. All adjusted for all sociodemographic variables. SA, sickness absence.
Figure 3
Figure 3
HRs for the risk of all-cause disability retirement in 2007–2014 according to the length of SA in different occupational classes in men and women. Upper non-manual workers with no sickness allowance days is the reference group. HRs on the logarithmic scale. All adjusted for all sociodemographic variables. Dotted lines represent HRs when not adjusted for diagnoses and solid lines represent HRs after adjusting for the diagnoses. SA, sickness absence.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. OECD. Sickness, disability and work: breaking the barriers; a synthesis of findings across OECD countries. Paris: OECD, 2010:165 Sickness, disability and work: breaking the barriers.
    1. Borg K, Hensing G, Alexanderson K. Predictive factors for disability pension--an 11-year follow up of young persons on sick leave due to neck, shoulder, or back diagnoses. Scand J Public Health 2001;29:104–12. 10.1177/14034948010290020701 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bratberg E, Gjesdal S, Maeland JG. Sickness absence with psychiatric diagnoses: individual and contextual predictors of permanent disability. Health Place 2009;15:308–14. 10.1016/j.healthplace.2008.06.004 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Gjesdal S, Ringdal PR, Haug K, et al. Predictors of disability pension in long-term sickness absence: results from a population-based and prospective study in Norway 1994-1999. Eur J Public Health 2004;14:398–405. 10.1093/eurpub/14.4.398 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Gjesdal S, Bratberg E. Diagnosis and duration of sickness absence as predictors for disability pension: results from a three-year, multi-register based* and prospective study. Scand J Public Health 2003;31:246–54. 10.1080/14034940210165154 - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources