Occhealth Bulletin
04 October 2009
Negative perceptions on illness facilitates late return to work
Category: Reviews
The way in which an illness is perceived by the sufferer impacts on their fitness to return to work and time taken to return to work. There are often disparities between the worker’s perception of their illness and their Occupational Physician’s (OP) perception of the illness. These were the findings of a recent study by Prosenjit Giri and co-workers on a cohort of 84 employees and nine OPs in the UK.
Eighty four employees with musculoskeletal (37%), psychological (37%) or other illnesses (26%) were recruited from three occupational health departments of the National Health Service (NHS), between August and November 2006. Each employee was determined to be off sick from work for more than two weeks and their medical diagnosis was classified as ‘serious’ or ‘non-serious’ according to the prognosis as given by their OP. Examples of serious illnesses included stroke, cancer and moderate to severe asthma and non-serious illnesses included non-specific back pain, fractures or mild to moderate anxiety or depression.
A questionnaire was designed to include a ‘Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire’ for the participants to complete. A similar questionnaire was also filled out by the occupational physicians to determine their perceptions of the employees’ illnesses. From three months of the recruitment date, records were checked by the researchers to determine the actual dates of employees’ return to work. They showed that 48 employees had returned to work, 20 had their employment terminated and the situation of the remaining 16 employees was still unresolved.
The researchers reported that “employees had more negative perceptions about their illnesses than OPs and these were more common in those that failed to return to work in the three months of the study”. The study revealed that in terms of their illnesses, employees reported more symptoms and more concerns about their illness than the OPs and also that the illness had a longer duration, greater impact on their lives and was more serious than the OPs perceived.
The authors of this study suggested it was not surprising that their results showed employees were better predictors of when they would be fit to return to work. They were surprised however, of the time it takes for employees to return to work from when the OPs judged them fit to return and suggested that this is of concern and should be addressed. The key message from this study was that in order to facilitate an early return to work, negative perceptions about an illness must be identified and addressed as these can be more disabling than the illness itself.
REFERENCE: Giri, P., Poole, J., Nightingale, P. and Robertson, A. (2009) Perceptions of illness and their impact on sickness absence. Occupational Medicine - advance access published August 24 2009.
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