Time from sickness absence due to cancer until return to work by locations and sex, Catalonia, Spain

BACKGROUND: Number of people diagnosed with cancer in the workplace are expected to increase steadily. Sickness absence is a tool of social protection system through which workers with a health problem can get absence from work, while receive economic and medical support until they are able to return to their workplace. METHODS: Cohort study of 426 affiliates to Social Security (57.5% women), residents in Catalonia who suffered an sickness absence due to a cancer between 2012-2015. Individuals were followed up from the beginning of the sickness absence episode until return to work. Kaplan Meier survival estimates were applied, stratified by sex, to compare time until return to work distinguishing between different cancer locations. RESULTS: Median age among workers who returned to work after an sickness absence was 49.3 years (sd 9.2). Among men, most frequent locations were male genital organs (28.7%), digestive (23.2%) and urinary organs (22.7%), and among women, breast and female genital organs (61.2%) and skin neoplasm (21.6%). Maximum time until return to work was 11.2 months. The median time until return to work was 1 month in both sexes. In men, we found the longest median time in male genital organs with 38 days and the lowest in skin cancer with 10 days. In women, we found the longest median time in digestive and the lowest in skin neoplasms with 14 days. Kaplan Meier curves showed bigger differences in time to return to work between locations among women than among men. Differences between both sexes were found statistically significant (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Most of the people who survive a cancer go back to employment. Time until return to work vary between cancer locations and sexes. Studying return to work of people who suffer a cancer allows us to determine how the disease affects survivors and society to better understand specific needs of survivors and detecting vulnerable groups. KEY MESSAGES: • Time from sickness absence due to cancer until return to work vary between cancer locations and sexes. • Research on sickness absence in important to better understand specific needs of survivors and detecting vulnerable groups.