Psychosocial determinants predicting long-term sickness absence: a register-based cohort study

This study assessed the psychosocial determinants as explanatory variables for the length of the work disability period. The aim was to estimate the predictive value of a selected set of psychosocial determinants from the Quickscan questionnaire for the length of the sick leave period. A comparison was also made with the most common biomedical determinant: diagnosis.

In a cohort study of 4 981 insured Belgian patients, the length of the sick leave was calculated using Kaplan-Meier. Predictive psychosocial determinants were selected using backward conditional selection in Cox regression and using concordance index values (C-index) we compared the predictive value of the biomedical to the psychosocial model in a sample subset.

Fourteen psychosocial determinants were significantly (p<0.10) related to the length of the sick leave: health perception of the patient, physical workload, social support management, social support colleagues, work-health interference, psychological distress, fear of colleagues' expectations, stressful life-events, autonomy, learning and development opportunities, job satisfaction, workload, work expectations and expectation to return to work. The C-index of this biopsychosocial model including gender, age and labour status was 0.80 (CI: 0.78; 0.81) (n=4 981). In the subset of 2 868 respondents with diagnostic information, the C-index for the same model was .73 (CI: 0.71; 0.76) compared with 0.63 (CI: 0.61; 0.65) for the biomedical model.

A set of 14 psychosocial determinants showed good predictive capacity (C-index: 0.80). Also, in a subset of the sample, the selected determinants performed better compared with diagnostic information to predict long-term sick leave (>6 months).