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That the health and care sector has more sick leave than the rest of the labor market is nothing new. However, doctors have not considered themselves a high-risk group for sick leave. Now it is beginning to change.
Analyst Ulrik Lidwall has written the new Swedish Social Security Agency report “Sick Leave in Psychiatric Diagnoses”, which analyzed sick leave among the population aged 20 to 69 in 2018 and 2019. The report also identifies new occupational groups with a high risk of both diseases regardless of diagnosis and illness in a psychiatric hospital. diagnosis. And there, the medical specialists are given as an example of a high-risk church. Specialist physicians have about a 15 percent increased risk of long-term illness (more than 14 days) with a psychiatric diagnosis.
– We have some new professions that we think are a bit surprising, since they are people with higher education, because many of these professions have very low absenteeism. Some exceptions are architects, specialists, and veterinarians and pharmacists, Ulrik Lindwall tells Sverige Radio.
In the latest analysis of the Swedish Social Insurance Agency on sick leave, it is possible to study the group of doctors in detail in a different way than before, and thus compare specialist doctors, AT doctors, ST doctors and other doctors . Specialist physicians have the highest sickness absence among the various categories of physicians, and fatigue syndrome is a large part of the problem, according to the report. The relative risk of disease (all diagnoses) for specialist physicians is 1.07 and for ST physicians 1.03. For AT doctors it is 0.87 and for other doctors 0.96.
Specialist physicians are a professional group that has not previously excelled in statistics. Something that the Swedish Social Security Agency describes as worrisome from a welfare point of view. The report points to problematic organizational and social working conditions as a possible reason.
In the short term, there is the possibility that higher education and managerial positions can protect occupational groups in industries that have undergone changes that have negatively affected the work environment. But in the longer term, if work environment problems persist, highly educated groups and administrators will also have problems, says the Swedish Social Security Agency, adding that problems in health and care have been obvious since the 1990s. .
For the disease in general, women have a 25 percent higher risk than men of being affected. For cases of illness in some form of psychiatric diagnosis, the risk is 31 percent higher for women, and the risk of being on sick leave due to stress-related mental illness is 41 percent higher . According to the author of the report, this is probably due to a combination of women taking more responsibility for children and families more often, while at the same time working more often in industries with difficult working conditions, such as schools. , care and nursing.
There is also a clear difference between doctors according to gender. For ST doctors, the risk of sick leave (across all diagnoses) is 45 percent higher than for male ST doctors. For female specialists, the risk of suffering a disease in psychiatric diagnoses is 57 percent higher compared to male specialists.
Overall, the results show that the duration of sick leave has increased significantly between 2014 and 2019 in Sweden. A person was on average on sick leave for about 90 days in 2019 and 2014 for 75 days.
According to the report, the increase is likely due to a higher degree of sickness fatigue syndrome. Eighteen percent of the women and 13 percent of the men who were on sick leave with psychiatric diagnoses last year were diagnosed with fatigue syndrome. Fatigue syndrome involves an average of six months of illness compared to acute stress reactions that last little more than a month.
The report in brief
Psychiatric diagnoses result in longer sick leave than most other illnesses. The duration of the disease has increased over time. Stress-related mental illnesses generally mean shorter illnesses compared to more unusual mental illnesses.
However, in stress-related mental illnesses, “fatigue syndrome” usually has illnesses that last half a year compared to “acute stress reactions” that last little more than a month. The higher incidence of fatigue syndrome may be an important reason for the increased duration of illness for psychiatric diagnoses.
In general, women are 25 percent more likely than men to start a disease. For cases with a psychiatric diagnosis, the risk is 31 percent higher for women compared to men and even higher for stress-related mental illnesses, 41 percent.
Stress-related mental illness in the form of fatigue syndrome is most common among people with preschool and elementary-aged children ages 3 to 8. The sick leave in psychiatric diagnoses is generally higher among people with large families, with four or more children.
Sick leave is generally highest in construction, transportation, public administration, education, and health and care. However, mental illness is greatest in health and care, animal health, animal care, pharmaceutical industry, and safety.
The risk of sick leave increases after age 50 and then decreases in those over 60 among those who are still working. In the case of psychiatric diagnoses, the pattern is instead that the risk is 10 to 15 percent higher in the 25 to 39 age group for both women and men than in the age group. age 45 to 49 years.
Source: »Leave due to illness in psychiatric diagnoses«
Lakartidningen.se
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