Stress-related sickness absence and return to labour market in Sweden

Purpose. To analyse factors influencing chances of returning to work after long-term sickness absence with a stress-related psychiatric diagnosis. Primary focus is on employer- and occupational categories as explanatory variables. Method. Data was collected from the regional social insurance office in the county of Varmland for 911 individuals, all with stress-related sickness absences during November in the year 2000. Logistic regressions were carried out on outcome states from long-term sickness absence on two follow-up occasions after two and three years. Results. The results indicate that the employer- and occupational categories only had a minor effect on return to work after the long-term sickness absence. Age and health-related factors together with time factors seem to be more relevant in explaining return to work. Conclusions. The findings suggest that individual labour market position, as occupation, employer, branch etc, seems to be less important than expected in explaining return to work from sickness absence due to stress-related psychiatric disorders.