Research Plus

Predicting job loss

A literature review identified many possible risk factors for long-term incapacity from work. However, when 82 multifarious factors were assessed in a retrospective study of OH records from 741 employees, five factors emerged as strong predictors of a failure to return to work: patients’ own assessments of their ability to work; length of sickness absence in the previous 12 months; age; whether the patient was waiting for treatment or consultation; and patients’ perceptions of barriers to their return to work.

Occupational Medicine 2008; 58: 99–106. http://occmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/58/2/99.abstract

Tags evidence based practice Return to work

Occupational Health at Work April/May 2008 (vol. 04/6) pp40