Occupational status among adult survivors following allo-SCT

Abstract

Being in work or the equivalent is an important goal after allo-SCT and is used as an indicator of recovery. The aim was to elucidate occupational status and factors associated with work among SCT survivors. Adults in working age with a haematological disease (n = 177) were followed up within a median of 8 (range 28) years post allo-SCT. Predictors of not being in work at all or working part-time because of sick leave, disability pension or early old-age pension were analyzed using logistic regression analyses. At diagnosis, 82% of the participants were working full-time and 2% were on sick leave or old-age pension. At follow-up, 52% were working full-time, 27% were working part-time and 17% were on sick leave, disability pension or old-age pension. Not working at all was associated with multi-morbidity (P = 0.01) and poorer health (P = 0.00). Working part-time was associated with a higher age at diagnosis (P = 0.00), being a woman (P = 0.03), being born abroad (P = 0.03) and multi-morbidity (P = 0.00). In conclusion, the majority of survivors were in paid work at follow-up; however, a substantial number were not working or worked part-time.

Return to Work in Patients with Hematological Cancers 1 Year after Treatment: A Prospective Longitudinal Study

“…This is consistent with results by Bieri and colleagues [10] and with studies on acute myeloid leukemia patients, patients receiving allogenic stem cell transplantation and mixed cancer patients [4,21,22]. A brief review of the literature in the article by Winterling and colleagues [22] shows the heterogeneous study designs of hematological RTW studies, especially regarding follow-up time and the proportion of patients in full-time work before cancer treatment, which makes it difficult to reliably compare results from different studies. In reverse, this means that 1 in 3 hematological cancer survivors are not able to return to work during the first year after treatment.…”

Inability to work and need for disability pension among long-term survivors of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

“…Furthermore, 27% were working part-time, 4% were studying, and 20% were not working. 23 Predictors of not working or working part-time were sick leave, disability pension or early retirement. In another study, including 690 patients employed before HSCT, the majority of which were autologous HSCT (80%), 62.3% had returned to work at 1 year after HSCT, but 39% reported some change in their occupational status.…”

Occupational status among adult survivors following allogeneic stem cell transplantation in childhood

“…The comprehensive questionnaire was first developed for breast cancer patients (Petersson, Wennman-Larsen, Nilsson, Olsson, & Alexanderson, 2011) and has been used on allo-SCT patients previously (Winterling et al, 2014). The questionnaire took approximately 20 min to complete and covered demographic, occupational and health issues.…”

“…Today, there is a paucity of studies focusing on survivors of paediatric allo-SCT transition to adulthood (Cupit, Duncan, Savani, & Hashmi, 2016), which limits the knowledge about how these individuals manage as adults. An important part of being an adult is to be able to enter and stay in the labour market, and late effects due to allo-SCT may negatively influence participation in paid work, as shown among adult survivors of allo-SCT (De Boer et al, 2015;Winterling et al, 2014). The few studies describing occupational status among adult long-term survivors who had allo-SCT in childhood indicate that approximately half (47%-69%) of these adults are in paid work (Ferry et al, 2007;Freycon et al, 2014;Lof, Winiarski, Ljungman, & Forinder, 2011) or that the majority (82%-86%) are in paid work or study (Helder et al, 2004;Sanders et al, 2010), 14%-16% are unemployed (Helder et al, 2004;Lof et al, 2011), and 12% are on sick leave or disability pension (Lof et al, 2011).…”