Recurrence of Sickness Absence Due to Depression after Returning to Work at a Japanese IT Company

Abstract

There have been few epidemiological studies on recurrent sickness absence due to depression after returning to work (RTW). The objective of this study was to investigate the prognosis of workers who are RTW with depression in a Japanese company. This study employed a descriptive epidemiology study design. Subjects of this study were 540 employees who worked full-time and were registered in the Health Data System and returned to work from April 2002 to March 2008 after their first leave of absence due to depression. We investigated the recurrence of sickness absence due to depression after returning to work using the Kaplan-Meier survival curve method. During the 8.5 yr follow-up period, almost half of the RTW employees experienced recurrent sickness absence. There was a steep increase in recurrent rates the first two years after RTW, and 85.2% of total recurrence of sickness absence had occurred within three years after the index episode.

Employment sustainability after return to work among Japanese stroke survivors

“…Fracture-induced RSA are more common among stroke survivors than among employees who RTW after depression-induced SA (Endo et al 2013). Huo reported that bone fractures often occurred in stroke survivors (Huo et al 2016).…”

Predictors of impaired work functioning in employees with major depression in remission

“…Improvement of work functioning might therefore be a relevant outcome from both a health and economic perspective, in particular due to the high recurrence rates of MDD and subsequent sickness absence (Hardeveld et al, 2010;Endo et al, 2012).…”

“…This holds in particular for MDD, because of its long-term course with different levels of residual or subclinical symptoms, a high rate of recurrence (ten Doesschate et al, 2010;Hardeveld et al, 2010) and sickness absence Endo et al (2012). However, studies focusing on these outcomes are scarce (Hees et al, 2013(Hees et al, , 2012Virtanen et al, 2011;Arends et al, 2014).…”

Efficacy of a Rework Program for Sick Leave due to Depressive Disorders

“…The high percentage of patients taking another sick leave after their initial return to work has been particularly problematic [14,15]. In a Japanese study investigating the percentage of workers taking another sick leave following their initial return to work showed that approximately half of the patients took another sick leave [11]; this finding is consistent with a previous report from the Netherlands [7]. There are two retrospective cohort studies on the efficacy of the Rework Program within the Japanese labor environment [16,17].…”

“…A report from Japan suggested that the frequency of past sick leaves was a significant predictor of future sick leaves [10]. In a longitudinal study in Japan, 49.3% of workers who returned to work after their first sick leave due to depression took another sick leave after 8.5 years; 28.3% and 42.0% took another sick leave 1 and 3 years following their return to work, respectively [11]. These studies indicate that reintegration into society following sick leave due to depression is difficult, and that development of a special intervention method is essential.…”