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The following is a summary of “Trajectories of work disability among individuals with anxiety-, mood/affective-, or stress-related disorders in a primary healthcare setting,” published in the September 2024 issue of Psychiatry by Helgesson et al.

One-third of the population is mainly affected by anxiety, mood, and stress-related disorders during their lives, impacting their ability to work. 

Researchers conducted a retrospective study to examine trajectories of work disability (WD) among individuals with anxiety-, mood/affective-, or stress-related disorders in primary healthcare and their associations with sociodemographic, clinical, and clinical-related factors.

They studied working-age individuals (22-62 years) in Stockholm County, Sweden, diagnosed with anxiety-, mood/affective-, or stress-related disorders in primary healthcare in 2017 (N = 11,304) and used Swedish national with regional registers linked by unique personal identification numbers. The primary outcome was days with WD (sickness absence + disability pension) during the 3 years before and after diagnosis. A zero-inflated Poisson group-based trajectory model was used to identify groups with similar WD patterns and a multinomial logistic regression to investigate associations with sociodemographic, clinical, and clinical-related factors.

The results showed 4 distinct trajectory groups: high increasing (5.1%), with high levels of WD  (16-80 days) during follow-up; peak (11.1%), with a peak in WD (up to 32 days) around diagnosis; low increasing (12.8%), with an increase in WD (4-22 days) during the study period; and constant low (71.1%), with almost no WD. Multinomial regression models showed diagnostic category, psychotropic medication use, psychiatric disorder diagnosis, age at diagnosis, and occupation were associated with WD trajectory groups.

They concluded that two-thirds of individuals with anxiety-, mood/affective-, or stress-related disorders in primary healthcare have a favorable prognosis regarding work disability, and certain sociodemographic and clinical factors could identify those at risk of long-term welfare dependency and benefit from interventions to promote a return to work.

Source: bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-024-06068-5