LAUSR

Psychosocial working conditions and sickness absence (SA) lacked consistent associations. However, pain seemed to play a role, either due to the underlying condition, or the psychosocial working conditions. For workplaces and occupational health care this might indicate need to detect pain and psychosocial stressors at work for prevention of SA. Objective To investigate pain and/or common mental disorders (CMDs) in the associations between psychosocial working conditions and sickness absence (SA) while controlling familial confounding. Methods Prospective Prospective twin cohort study included survey data for pain and CMD, register data for SA and psychosocial working conditions. The follow-up from 2005 to 2016 of 28,916 twin individuals for first incident SA spell measured as the main International Classification of Diseases version 10 (ICD-10) diagnosis groups (F00-F99, I00-I99, and M00-M99), or the duration. We used regression models to obtain odds ratio (OR), incidence rate ratio (IRR), or relative risk ratio (RRR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results The covariate adjusted models of 9156 SA spells indicated almost no statistically significant associations between psychosocial working conditions and SA. Conclusions Psychosocial working conditions were not associated with SA while familial confounding could not be ruled out.