Farrants K, Alexanderson K. Sickness absence after work accidents and post-traumatic stress among white-collar workers in the retail and wholesale industry; a longitudinal Swedish cohort study.
BMC Public Health 2024;
24:2389. [PMID:
39227810 PMCID:
PMC11370135 DOI:
10.1186/s12889-024-19865-0]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2024] [Accepted: 08/23/2024] [Indexed: 09/05/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Most studies about accidents and about PTSD, respectively, have been conducted either on blue-collar workers, or on the entire working population. There are very few such studies on white-collar workers.
AIM
To examine diagnosis-specific sickness absence (SA) and disability pension (DP) after a work accident or PTSD, respectively, among white-collar workers in the private retail and wholesale industry.
METHODS
A prospective population-based cohort study of all 192,077 such workers aged 18-67 (44% women) in Sweden in 2012, using linked microdata from nationwide registers. We identified individuals who had secondary healthcare due to work-related accidents (n = 1114; 31% women) or to PTSD (n = 216; 79% women) in 2012-2016. Their average number of net days of diagnosis-specific SA (in SA spells > 14 days) and DP were calculated for 365 days before and 365 days after the healthcare visit.
RESULTS
35% of the women and 24% of the men had at least one new SA spell during the 365 days after healthcare due to work accidents. Among women, the average number of SA/DP days increased from 14 in the year before the visit to 31 days the year after; among men from 9 to 21 days. SA days due to fractures and other injuries increased most, while SA days due to mental diagnoses increased somewhat. 73% of women and 64% of men who had healthcare due to PTSD had at least one new SA spell in the next year. Women increased from 121 to 157 SA/DP days and men from 112 to 174. SA due to stress-related disorders and other mental diagnoses increased the most, while DP due to stress-related diagnoses and SA due to musculoskeletal diagnoses increased slightly.
CONCLUSIONS
About a quarter of those who had secondary healthcare due to work accidents, and the majority of those with such healthcare due PTSD, had new SA in the following year. SA due to injury and mental diagnoses, respectively, increased most, however, SA/DP due to other diagnoses also increased slightly. More knowledge is needed on factors associated with having or not having SA/DP in different diagnoses after work accidents and among people with PTSD.
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