Length of sickness absence from work after minor fractures

Rehabilitation professionals sometimes believe that sickness absence from work is unduly prolonged. This paper examines the implications of factors that influence the timing of return to work, among patients with minor fractures, for the appropriateness of the time at which they should return to work. Data about a consecutive series of 85 employed hospital outpatients with fractures of the wrist, hand or foot bones were collected by means of interviews with the patients and from the orthopaedic case notes. The mean length of sickness absence from work was 3 weeks. Variations were related to the site and severity of the injury. Patients with physically heavy jobs, and patients with a husband or wife at home while they were off work, were off work for longer than average (6 and 5 weeks respectively). 76 per cent of the patients said they returned to work at the right time, and 23 per cent too early. Comparable findings relating to fracture patients, appear not to have been reported in the research literature previously. The patients in the series were away from work longer than advocates of aggressive rehabilitation might consider necessary, although the patients themselves felt they had returned to work at the right time or too early. The development of explicit criteria, based on the nature of the patient's injuries, recovery and job, might enable doctors to give patients more helpful advice about the time at which they should appropriately return to work.