Too many 'sickies' could mean a shorter life

Researchers in Britain say workers who take long spells of sick leave more than once in three years, are at a higher risk of death than their colleagues who take no such absence.

Apparently if those absences are due to circulatory or psychiatric problems or for surgery, that is particularly the case.

The researchers from University College London, in an investigation into whether the reason for sickness absence improved the prediction of death, found that deaths increased as the medically certified absence rates (spells of more than 7 days) increased.

It was found that almost 30% of men and women who had one or more medically certified absence in three years had a 66% increased risk of premature death than those with no such absence.

Previous research has shown that medically certified sickness absences may be a good way of indicating the range of illnesses employees experience and could also be a good global measure of health differentials between employees and it has previously been suggested that the specific reasons for absence such as psychiatric problems or heart disease may give a clearer prediction of premature death rates.

Jenny Head and her colleagues obtained sickness absence records for 6,478 British civil servants between 1985 and 1988 and analysed associations with death until 2004 and they found that by including the diagnosis for sickness absence they significantly improved the prediction of the risk of death.

Employees taking sickness absences due to circulatory disease were four times more likely to die prematurely than their colleagues with no absence and those who took absence due to psychiatric diseases or because of a surgical operation diagnosis around twice as likely to die prematurely.

It was also found that one or more spells of absence with a psychiatric diagnosis was predictive of a two and a half fold increase in cancer related death whereas employees taking spells of sickness absence with a musculoskeletal diagnosis were not at increased risk of death compared to their colleagues who took no absence.

The researchers say that the monitoring of reasons for sickness absence could contribute to identifying groups at increased health risks and who needs a targeted intervention - Ms Head says this appears to be a good early marker for people going on to develop more long-term serious illnesses.

Experts suggest that specific diagnostic information on sickness absence could provide general practitioners with "a useful biopsychosocial tool" to identify workers with an increased risk of serious illness or risk of death and could also be used to identify employees with work related health problems such as stress and high job demands, for targeted intervention by occupational physicians.

The report is published in the British Medical Journal.