Reporting and prediction of work-related sickness absence by general practitioners

Background: Information on sickness absence (SA) duration in general practice is difficult to record. The duration of absence certified by general practitioners (GPs) can be viewed as a prognosis for return to work. The Health and Occupation Research network in General Practice (THOR-GP) collects SA information from GPs associated with cases of work-related ill-health. A sample of these cases is followed up 1 year retrospectively to gather information on the duration of absence.

Aims: To examine the extent of the underestimation of SA in routinely reported data and to investigate how well GPs predict patients' return to work.

Methods: THOR-GPs submit case and SA information using a web-based form. GPs who submitted selected cases were asked about the total number of days of SA and whether the patient had returned to work.

Results: THOR-GPs' routine SA data collection underestimated absence duration by 61%. According to the retrospective data, a much larger proportion of periods of absence due to work-related mental ill-health developed into long-term SA (60%) than episodes attributed to musculoskeletal disorders (32%). In over half the reported cases, the return to work was longer than the GP initially predicted.

Conclusions: THOR-GP prospectively reported SA data underestimated the total length of absence; however, these data can examine the episodic rates of absence within different groups. More accurate longitudinal data can be collected retrospectively. GPs' ability to predict the length of time a patient will be away from work is important to enable treatment and rehabilitation planning in order to decrease the likelihood of a patient falling into long-term SA.