Sick-listing adherence: a register study of 1.4 million episodes of sickness benefit 2010–2013 in Sweden

BMC Public Health

Table 1 Episodes of sickness benefit commenced 1 January 2010–31 December 2013 in Sweden, and episodes included in the study

	Women		Men		All
	n	(%)	n	(%)	n	(%)
Episodes of sickness benefit¹	1,054,730	(100)	621,940	(100)	1,676,670	(100)
Excluded:
– women sick-listed for pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium	83,323		n.a.		83,323
– granted partial (25%, 50% or 75%) sickness benefit at the beginning of an episode	120,717		45,778		166,495
– retracted sickness benefit during the first year of sick leave²	7,257		5,953		13,210
– deceased during the first year of sick leave	3,166		4,162		7,328
Remaining study population	840,267	(80)	566,047	(91)	1,406,314	(84)
Included in the analyses of full early RTW³	664,998		442,329		1,107,327
Included in the analyses of partial early RTW⁴	795,935		540,364		1,336,299

¹ Total number of episodes of sickness benefit (100%, 75%, 50% or 25% of sick leave >14 days) commenced 1 January 2010–31 December 2013 in Sweden.
² Number of episodes with retraction of sickness benefit during the first year of sick leave after a decision by the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, commonly after 180 days of sick leave.
³ Episodes of sickness benefit shorter than 365 days without information about prescribed length of sick leave in the Medical Sickness Certificates Register (MSCR) were omitted from the analysis.
⁴ Episodes of sickness benefit with reduced benefit during the first year of sick leave without information about prescribed length of sick leave at the time of reduced benefit were omitted from the analysis.

ISSN: 1471-2458