Associations between improvements in psychological variables and subsequent sick leave among persons receiving a multimodal intervention for exhaustion disorder

BACKGROUND: The incidence of sick leave due to stress-related disorders such as exhaustion disorder (ED) is high in many economically developed countries. Meanwhile, knowledge about facilitating return to work during clinical interventions for ED patients is still limited. The current study aimed to investigate if improvements in exhaustion symptoms, insomnia, perfectionistic behaviors, psychological flexibility, and perceived work ability during treatment of ED were associated with subsequent sick leave in the year following treatment. METHODS: Using a cohort of 880 ED patients who had participated in a multimodal intervention based on Cognitive Behavior Therapy, we estimated the association between one standard deviation (SD) improvement in treatment-related variables and the rate of net days of sick leave one-year following treatment. RESULTS: Our results showed that improvements in all treatment-related variables were associated with lower sick leave rates one year following treatment. Improvements in exhaustion symptoms (rate ratio (RR): 0.70 [95% CI 0.66; 0.75]) and self-perceived work ability (RR 0.56 [95% CI 0.50; 0.63]) showed the strongest associations to subsequent sick leave. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that interventions focusing on exhaustion symptoms, insomnia, perfectionistic behaviors, psychological flexibility, and perceived work ability can have a meaningful impact on ED patients’ subsequent sick leave. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov (Identifier: NCT03360136). SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-023-16799-x.