ArticleBMC public health2015
Mental health symptoms identify workers at risk of long-term sickness absence due to mental disorders: prospective cohort study with 2-year follow-up.
Article in BMC public health, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Depression symptoms and risk of sick leave: a systematic review and meta-analysis.International archives of occupational and environmental health · 2021Pooled it
- Article
- Barriers for return to work as an iatrogenic effect of sickness absence: a proposed conceptual framework and questionnaire based on a cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Assessing the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology Self-Report scores to predict continuous employment in mood disorder patients.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- External validation of a prediction model and decision tree for sickness absence due to mental disorders.International archives of occupational and environmental health · 2020Article
- Development of Prediction Models for Sickness Absence Due to Mental Disorders in the General Working Population.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2020Article
- Effect of Predeployment Psychiatric Diagnoses on Postdeployment Long-Term Sickness Absence and Mental Health Problems Among Danish Military Personnel.Journal of traumatic stress · 2020Article
- Diagnosis-Specific Sickness Absence and Subsequent Common Mental Disorders: A Register-Linkage Cohort Study among Finnish Public Sector Employees.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- Article
- Reliability and Validity of the Work and Well-Being Inventory (WBI) for Employees.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2018Article
- Depressive symptoms and risk of absence among workers in a manufacturing company: a 12-month follow-up study.Industrial health · 2018Article
- Evaluation of the Quebec Healthy Enterprise Standard: Effect on Adverse Psychosocial Work Factors and Psychological Distress.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2018Article
- Characteristics of individuals receiving disability benefits in the Netherlands and predictors of leaving the disability benefit scheme: a retrospective cohort study with five-year follow-up.BMC public health · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMental health problems are a leading cause of long-term sickness absence (LTSA). Workers at risk of mental LTSA should preferably be identified before they report sick. The objective of this study was to examine mental health symptoms as predictors of future mental LTSA in non-sicklisted workers.
methodsProspective cohort study of 4877 non-sicklisted postal workers. Mental health symptoms were measured at baseline in November 2010 with the Four-Dimensional Symptom Questionnaire (distress and depressed mood) and Maslach's Burnout Inventory (fatigue). Mental health symptom scores were analyzed against incident mental LTSA retrieved from an occupational health register in 2011 and 2012. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) represented the ability of mental health symptom scores to discriminate between workers with and without mental LTSA during 2-year follow-up.
resultsComplete cases analysis included 2782 (57 %) postal workers of whom 73 had mental LTSA during 2-year follow-up. Distress fairly (AUC = 0.75; 95 % CI 0.67-0.82) and both depressed mood (AUC = 0.64; 95 % CI 0.57-0.72) and fatigue (AUC = 0.61; 95 % CI 0.53-0.69) poorly discriminated between workers with and without mental LTSA during 2-year follow-up. The discriminative ability of distress did not improve by adding depressed mood and fatigue.
conclusionsMeasurement of distress sufficed to identify non-sicklisted postal workers at risk of future mental LTSA. The Four-Dimensional Symptom Questionnaire distress scale is a promising tool to screen working populations for of mental LTSA, which enables secondary preventive strategies.
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