Findings from Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research in the Area of Health and Society Described (Sick of waiting: Does waiting for…

Health & Medicine Week

Findings from Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research in the Area of Health and Society Described (Sick of waiting: Does waiting for elective treatment cause sickness absence?)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health & Medicine Week -- Fresh data on Health and Medicine - Health and Society are presented in a new report. According to news reporting out of Trondheim, Norway, by NewsRx editors, research stated, "Sickness absence represents a substantial cost in most of Western Europe, whether the insurance scheme is public or private. The objective of this study was to analyse whether waiting time for elective treatment in specialist health care is associated with the length of individual sickness absence in Norway."

Financial support for this research came from Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise’s (see also Health and Medicine - Health and Society).

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research, "To estimate the association between waiting time and the duration of sick leave, we used data from the working population aged 18-67 years in 2010-2012. The files combined register data from The Norwegian Patient Registry with individual characteristics and sickness absence data from Statistics Norway, and was analysed using zero-truncated negative binomial regression. We found that about one in four employees who had one or more spells of sick leave in the period, was also waiting for consultation or treatment in specialist health care. Yet, the length of the waiting period had no substantial effect on the length of sickness absence (i.e., less than 0.1% reduction)."

According to the news editors, the research concluded: "Therefore, while measures to reduce waiting times for hospital treatment in many instances could be beneficial for the individual patient, such policies would probably not have any substantial impact on the national sickness absence rate."

For more information on this research see: Sick of waiting: Does waiting for elective treatment cause sickness absence? Health Policy, 2016;120(12):1383-1388. Health Policy can be contacted at: Elsevier Ireland Ltd, Elsevier House, Brookvale Plaza, East Park Shannon, Co, Clare, 00000, Ireland. (Elsevier - www.elsevier.com; Health Policy - www.journals.elsevier.com/health-policy/)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting K. Dyrstad, SINTEF Technol & Soc, Dept. of Hlth Res, NO-7465 Trondheim, Norway. Additional authors for this research include T. Halvorsen, K.G. Hem and T. Rohde.

Keywords for this news article include: Trondheim, Norway, Europe, Health and Society, Health and Medicine, Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research.