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Predicting return to work after long-term sickness absence with subjective health complaints: a prospective cohort study, 2020, Weerdesteijn et al

Discussion in 'Other psychosomatic news and research' started by Andy, Jul 13, 2020.

  1. Andy

    Andy Committee Member

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    Open access, https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-020-09203-5
     
    Andy, Jul 13, 2020
    #1
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  2. BruceInOz

    BruceInOz Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    From the abstract I assume this is just correlation with no demonstration of causality. I imagine being more unwell makes one more likely to claim benefits and have lower expectation of recovery, etc.
     
    BruceInOz, Jul 13, 2020
    #2
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  3. Sean

    Sean Moderator Staff Member

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    With respect to return to work predictors, workers with subjective health complaints do not differ from the reference group.

    Seems the critical finding.
     
    Sean, Jul 13, 2020
    #3
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  4. Hoopoe

    Hoopoe Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Some interesting data in there. It appears people with subjective health problems that receive specialist care and medication are much less likely to return to work than those with other health problems (which presumably means well defined, objectively measurable problems).
     
    Hoopoe, Jul 13, 2020
    #4
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  5. Trish

    Trish Moderator Staff Member

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    I am very suspicious of the motivation of researchers who start their background statement with this:
    That is making a massive assumption that a correlation between returning to work and better quality of life/less permanent disablity has a causal direction where it is the return to work that causes better health. Surely it's the other way around logically - the sicker and more disabled you are, the less able you are to return to work.
     
    Trish, Jul 13, 2020
    #5
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  6. NelliePledge

    NelliePledge Moderator Staff Member

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    only when I finally saw Dr with specialist knowledge of ME was I told working was counterproductive to my long term health.
     
    NelliePledge, Jul 13, 2020
    #6
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  7. Trish

    Trish Moderator Staff Member

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    Me too.
     
    Trish, Jul 13, 2020
    #7
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  8. Peter Trewhitt

    Peter Trewhitt Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Attempts to get back into working have for me been associated with significant relapses.
     
    Peter Trewhitt, Jul 13, 2020
    #8
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  9. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    When you definitely understand how causality works. It's only when you turn on the lights that you see the cockroaches. Therefore if the light remains closed, no cockroaches. Easy peasy.
    Disability support is non-health-related. Right. OK. We are truly dealing with advanced geniuses here.

    The issue here is the belief that health problems are not real unless blessed by an expert. I don't know how to explain that to people who went to medical school for years that this is not how any of this works. But apparently it truly needs to be explained to them.

    Sick people are sick. What a twist.
     
    rvallee, Jul 13, 2020
    #9
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  10. ME/CFS Skeptic

    ME/CFS Skeptic Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    What do you mean exactly because I thought that the main conclusion is that both the return to work rate and predictors of return to work are very similar in both groups, whether health complaints are subjective or not.
    It is peculiar that the severity of illness and factors such as depression did not predict return to work very well.
     
    ME/CFS Skeptic, Jul 15, 2020
    #10
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  11. Hoopoe

    Hoopoe Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I was looking at table 2.

    "Use of specialist care last 2 years" has an odds ratio of 0.96 for people with subjective health complaints. For the other disorders the odds ratio is 0.54.

    Now that I'm looking at it again I realize I interpreted it the other way around, the lower odds ratio actually means lower return to work (I think).

    https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-020-09203-5/tables/2
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2020
    Hoopoe, Jul 15, 2020
    #11
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