Inability to Work Fulltime, Prevalence and Associated Factors Among Applicants for Work Disability Benefit.
Henk-Jan Boersema, Tialda Hoekstra, Femke Abma and 1 others
PMID 33710457WHAT IT FOUND
Among 30,177 Dutch disability benefit applicants, 39.4% were assessed as unable to work full time.
Most of these could work only about 4 hours per day. Higher age, female gender, higher education, and multimorbidity were associated with this limitation, varying by disease group.
Key findings
01The prevalence of inability to work fulltime was 39.4%, with the majority of those affected assessed as able to work no more than roughly 4 hours per day.
02In the total sample, higher age, female gender, middle and high educational level, and multimorbidity were significantly associated with a higher risk of inability to work fulltime.
03Diseases of the musculoskeletal system showed the lowest odds for inability to work fulltime, while neoplasms and diseases of the blood and respiratory system showed the highest odds.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study used administrative register data not collected for research purposes, so it lacked information on disease severity, specific treatments, and environmental or work factors. The cross-sectional design prevents drawing causal conclusions about the associations found. 3,002 cases were excluded due to missing educational data, and this excluded group differed significantly from the study sample, having more often normal ability to work fulltime. The assessment of work ability was based on insurance physician judgments, which may vary, and the study did not validate these assessments against objective functional measures.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was supported by non-U.S. government funding.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the association between higher education and inability to work fulltime as evidence that educated workers are more disabled. The authors suggest this may reflect selection bias, better ability to describe limitations, or the nature of the jobs held, rather than a true difference in functional capacity.