ArticleJournal of occupational rehabilitation2025
The Association of Waiting Time with Postoperative Health Care Use and Sickness Absences: A Register Study in Finland.
Article in Journal of occupational rehabilitation, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeThe aim of this study was to examine the length of waiting time in elective knee, shoulder, hip, and lower back surgery, and how it was associated with sickness absence, use of health care, and work ability support services during 1 year after the surgery.
methodsThe patients (n = 429) were grouped by the elective surgery they had undergone. Waiting time was calculated as the time between the day of referral and the day of operation. The register data were analyzed with general linear regression.
resultsThe median waiting time for a knee operation (n = 287) was 98 days, for a shoulder operation (n = 105) 39 days, for a hip operation (n = 19), 177 days and for a lower back operation (n = 18) 114 days. The use of work ability support services increased after all the operations. A prolonged waiting time (> 90 days) for knee and shoulder operations was associated with the amount of sickness absence (IRR: 1.09, 95% CI 1.06-1.12; IRR: 0.86, 95% CI 0.82-0.89, respectively), secondary health care visits (IRR: 1.81, 95% CI 1.33-2.47; IRR: 2.28, 95% CI 1.50-3.47, respectively), and occupational curative care visits (IRR: 2.06, 95% CI 1.30-3.29) for shoulder operations. No association was found between a prolonged waiting time and work ability service visits during the year after the surgery.
conclusionThe association of waiting time length with postoperative sickness absences and health care visits calls for taking actions to reduce the waiting times. Waiting should be considered as an active time aiming to prepare for the operation and the recovery.
Indexed as
Identifiers
41091428What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.