Effectiveness of legislative changes obligating notification of prolonged sickness absence and assessment of remaining work ability on return to work and work participation: a natural experiment in Finland.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Policies have been introduced to reduce sickness absence, but their effectiveness is largely unknown. In a natural experiment, we examined effects of legislative changes on return to work and work participation.

Methods

The source population consisted of up to 72,164 Finnish public sector employees with a permanent job contract in 2008-2011 (before) and in 2013-2014 (after). We used employees with a continuous sickness absence of at least 30 calendar-days (n=5708-6393), 60 compensated days (n=1481-1655) and 90 compensated days (n=766-932). We examined sustainable return to work (a minimum of 28 consecutive working days) with survival analysis as well as monthly work participation after a sickness absence, and annual gain in work participation after the interventio

SUBMITTER: Halonen JI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4717458 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature