title: Psychological distress screener for risk of future mental sickness absence in non-sicklisted employees.
abstract: Recently, a three-item screener, derived from the 16-item distress scale of the Four-Dimensional Symptom Checklist (4DSQ), was used to measure psychological distress in sicklisted employees. The aim of the present study was to investigate the ability of the 16-item distress scale and three-item distress screener to identify non-sicklisted employees at risk of sickness absence (SA) due to mental disorders.
  
  
  
  Prospective cohort study including 4877 employees working in distribution and transport. The 4DSQ distress scale was distributed at baseline in November 2010. SA diagnosed within the International Classification of Diseases -10 chapter F was defined as mental SA and retrieved from an occupational health register during 2-year follow-up. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was used to discriminate between workers with ('cases') and without ('non-cases') mental SA during follow-up.
  
  
  
  A total of 2782 employees (57%) were included in complete cases analysis; 73 employees had mental SA during 2-year follow-up. Discrimination between cases and non-cases was similar for the 16-item distress scale (AUC = 0.721; 95% CI, 0.622-0.823) and the three-item screener (AUC = 0.715; 95% CI, 0.615-0.815).
  
  
  
  Healthcare providers could use the three-item distress screener to identify non-sicklisted employees at risk of future mental SA.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Research and Development, ArboNed Occupational Health Service, Utrecht, The Netherlands 2 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, VU Medical Center, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands marieke.van.hoffen@arboned.nl.
authors.forename: Marieke F A
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: van Hoffen
authors.affiliation: 2 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, VU Medical Center, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jos W R
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Twisk
authors.affiliation: 2 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, VU Medical Center, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Martijn W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Heymans
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Research and Development, ArboNed Occupational Health Service, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: de Bruin
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Research and Development, ArboNed Occupational Health Service, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Catelijne I
authors.initials: CI
authors.lastname: Joling
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Research and Development, ArboNed Occupational Health Service, Utrecht, The Netherlands 2 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, VU Medical Center, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 3 Department of Health Sciences, 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; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D016272:Occupational Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012042:Registries; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D018582:Sick Leave / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires