Improving the effectiveness of sickness benefit case management through a public-private partnership? A difference-in-difference analysis in eighteen Danish municipalities

Table 3 Baseline descriptive statistics for sickness absence beneficiaries in the intervention and control municipalities

	Intervention (N = 13,617)		Control (N = 21,748)
	Percent		Percent		Standardized Mean Difference (SMD)^a
Binary variables
Gender (ref = male)	56.4		57.0		0.009
Citizenship (ref = non-Western country)
Danish	95.9		96.6		0.026
Western country (excl. Danish)	1.4		1.6		0.012
Marital status (ref = not single)	28.2		25.6		0.041
Pre-school children (ref = no)	18.1		18.8		0.013
	Mean	(SD)	Mean	(SD)
Continuous variables
Age	41.9	11.5	42.6	11.4	0.041
Months of schooling	148.7	31.0	149.5	30.8	0.020
Weeks sick-listed the preceding 52 weeks	3.6	7.6	3.8	7.8	0.016
Number of visits to GP	9.5	8.7	9.2	8.7	0.030
Number of visits to medical specialists	0.9	2.8	0.8	2.3	0.024
Number of visits to physiotherapists	1.9	5.9	2.3	6.9	0.047
Number of visits to psychologists	0.1	1.1	0.1	0.9	0.015
Number of hospitalisations	0.2	0.6	0.2	0.8	0.011
Length of hospitalisation (no. of bed days)	0.4	2.6	0.5	2.7	1.341

N refers to the number of sickness benefit spells in the year preceding the intervention. The baseline variables are either measured in the calendar year preceding the sickness benefit spell or in the beginning (January 1st) of the same calendar year as the first day of the sickness benefit spell. a: χ²-test. b: t-test
^aA Standardized mean difference equal to or higher than 1.96 indicates statistical significance at ≤0.05-level

ISSN: 1471-2458