title: Recovery and recurrence of mental sickness absence among production and office workers in the industrial sector.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Manual workers in the public sector have previously been found to be at risk of mental sickness absence (SA). As the impact of mental illness differs across economic sectors, this study investigated mental SA in the industrial sector, differentiating between office and production workers.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ten-year observational cohort study including 14 369 (8164 production and 6205 office) workers with a total of 101 118 person years. SA data were retrieved from an occupational health register. Mental SA episodes were medically certified as emotional disturbances [10th version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10 R45)] or mental and behavioural disorders (ICD-10 F00-F99). The first mental SA episode since baseline was called index mental SA. Recurrences were defined as any mental SA episode occurring >28 days after recovery from index mental SA.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The incidence of mental SA was higher in production workers than in office workers, but office workers needed longer time to recover from mental SA. Mental SA recurred as frequently in production workers as in office workers. The median time to recurrence was 15.9 months and tangibly shorter in office workers (14.9 months) than in production workers (16.7 months). Production and office workers aged >55 years were at increased risk of recurrent mental SA within 12 months of recovery from index mental SA.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The incidence of mental SA was higher in production workers than in office workers, whereas recurrence rates did not differ between them. Occupational health providers should pay special attention to older workers as they are at increased risk of recurrent mental SA.
authors.affiliation: 1 ArboNed Occupational Health Service, Utrecht, The Netherlands 2 Department of Health Sciences, Division of Community and Occupational Medicine, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands giny.norder@arboned.nl.
authors.forename: Giny
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Norder
authors.affiliation: 2 Department of Health Sciences, Division of Community and Occupational Medicine, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Ute
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Bültmann
authors.affiliation: 1 ArboNed Occupational Health Service, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Rob
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hoedeman
authors.affiliation: 1 ArboNed Occupational Health Service, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: de Bruin
authors.affiliation: 2 Department of Health Sciences, Division of Community and Occupational Medicine, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jac J L
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: van der Klink
authors.affiliation: 1 ArboNed Occupational Health Service, Utrecht, The Netherlands 2 Department of Health Sciences, Division of Community and Occupational Medicine, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Corné A M
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Roelen
mesh_terms: D000041:Absenteeism; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007221:Industry / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands / Q000453:epidemiology; D012008:Recurrence; D018582:Sick Leave / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055815:Young Adult