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The value of interdisciplinary treatment for sickness absence in chronic pain: A nationwide register-based cohort
Riccardo LoMartire1,2, Mathilda Björk3, Örjan Dahlström4
1Division of Physiotherapy, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, Sweden.
Background:
Interdisciplinary treatment (IDT) is an internationally recommended intervention for chronic pain, despite inconclusive evidence of its effects on sickness absence.
Methods:
With data from 25,613 patients in Swedish specialist healthcare, we compared sickness absence, in the form of both sick leave and disability pensions, over a 5-year period between patients either allocated to an IDT programme or to other/no interventions (controls). To obtain population-average estimates, a Markov multistate model with theory-based inverse probability weights was used to compute both the proportion of patients on sickness absence and the total sickness absence duration.
Results:
IDT patients were more likely than controls to receive sickness absence benefits at any given time (baseline: 49% vs. 46%; 5-year follow-up: 36% vs. 35%), and thereby also had a higher total duration, with a mean (95% CI) of 67 (87, 48) more days than controls over the 5-year period. Intriguingly, sick leave was higher in IDT patients (563 [552, 573] vs. 478 [466, 490] days), whereas disability pension was higher in controls (152 [144, 160] vs. 169 [161, 178] days).
Conclusion:
Although sickness absence decreased over the study period in both IDT patients and controls, we found no support for IDT decreasing sickness absence more than other/no interventions in chronic pain patients.
Significance:
In this large study of chronic pain patients in specialist healthcare, sickness absence is compared over a 5-year period between patients in an interdisciplinary treatment programme and other/no interventions. Sickness absence decreased over the study period in bothgroups; however, there was no support forthat it decreased more with interdisciplinary treatment than alternative interventions.
