Corporate reported sick leave and its relationship with education, responsibility and blood pressure

The investigation group included all 1313 employees of SAAB-SCANIA, Linköping, in the age group 50-59 years. In 1975 they were called during their working hours to the company's Physical Training Centre to be assessed. This investigation included measurements such as systolic blood pressure, height, weight and certain anthropometric measurements. Other information was obtained from the personnel records about sex, age, type of employment, educational grade, degree of responsibility, and reported sick leave in 1974 and 1975 for the workers, and between 1970 and 1975 for the salaried employees. The total number of drop-outs was 238, or 18%. Sick leave is mainly a problem of the long-term absence of a minority of employees with an ever-increasing rate of absence. Sick leave among the salaried employees decreases in relation to higher education and increased responsibility. A high level of responsibility and education characterizes a low-risk group, whereas little responsibility and a low level of education denote a high-risk group with regard to blood pressure and sick leave. A disparity--low education and medium responsibility--has earlier been described as denoting a high risk of psychosomatic diseases. In this study they showed a rate of absence lower than the average at the same time as the blood pressure is above the average.