Association Between Improvement in Cardiovascular Risk Profile and Changes in Sickness Absence: Results of the ICARIA...

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether changes in cardiovascular risk (CVR) are associated with the length and cost of sickness absence.

A prospective cohort of 179 186 participants was evaluated. Each participant's CVR (SCORE) was assessed on 2 consecutive medical examinations, approximately 1 year apart (365 ± 90 days). Cardiovascular risk was categorized as < 4% or ≥ 4%, and participants were divided into 4 groups according to changes in their risk between the 2 assessments. After the second CVR estimate, a 1-year follow-up was carried out to assess sickness absence. Differences between the 4 groups in terms of the total count of sickness absence days during the follow-up period were tested using Poisson regression models.

After adjustment for covariates, participants who showed an improvement in CVR had a lower count of sickness absence days compared with both those who showed a worsening in risk and those who remained stable at ≥ 4% (RR, 0.91; 95%CI, 0.84-0.98). In comparison with participants whose CVR did not improve, more of the participants whose risk did improve had quit smoking (+17.2%; P < .001), and had controlled their blood pressure (+26.0%, P < .001), total cholesterol (+9.3%; P < .001), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (+14.9%; P < .001), and triglyceride levels (+14.6%; P < .001).

Our results suggest that an improvement in CVR profile is accompanied by a decrease in sickness absence during a 1-year follow-up.