TY - JOUR PY - 2019// TI - Impact of depressive symptoms on worklife expectancy: a longitudinal study on Danish employees JO - Occupational and environmental medicine A1 - Pedersen, Jacob A1 - Thorsen, Sannie Vester A1 - Andersen, Malene Friis A1 - Hanvold, Therese N. A1 - Schlünssen, Vivi A1 - Bültmann, Ute SP - ePub EP - ePub VL - ePub IS - ePub N2 - OBJECTIVE: Depressive symptoms are associated with sickness absence, work disability and unemployment, but little is known about worklife expectancy (WLE). This study investigates the impact of depressive symptoms on the WLE of a large sample of Danish employees.

METHODS: We used occupational health survey data of 11 967 Danish employees from 2010 and linked them with register data on salary and transfer payments from 2010 to 2015. Depressive symptoms were self-reported using the Major Depression Inventory. We used multistate data and a life table approach with Cox proportional hazard modelling to estimate the WLE of employees, expressed by time in work, unemployment and sickness absence. Separate analyses were conducted for sex and employees with a voluntary early retirement pension scheme. Using age as time axis, we used inverse probability weights to account for differences in educational level, sector, body mass index, smoking habits and loss of employment during sickness absence.

RESULTS: The WLE of employees reporting depressive symptoms was shorter compared with those not reporting depressive symptoms; that is, the expected time in unemployment and sickness absence was longer, while the expected time in work was shorter. The shorter WLE was most pronounced in women; for example, a 40-year-old woman with depressive symptoms can expect 3.3 years less in work, 0.8 years more in unemployment and 0.7 years more in sickness absence. Employees with a voluntary early retirement pension scheme showed an even lower WLE.

CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed a meaningful impact of depressive symptoms on the WLE of Danish employees using a multistate framework.

© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 1351-0711 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/oemed-2019-105961 ID - ref1 ER -