Risk factors for absenteeism due to musculoskeletal diseases in workers in the judiciary sector

INTRODUCTION: Musculoskeletal diseases represent an important health problem for workers, due to the degree of suffering caused by pain and to the high frequency of absenteeism. OBJECTIVES: To identify risk factors for absenteeism due to musculoskeletal disease in employees at a judiciary court and to describe incidence, frequency, and duration of sick leaves. METHODS: This is a 6-year follow-up study conducted in the state of Bahia, Brazil. The dependent variable was absenteeism, measured by the time of the first sick leave in the period. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate survival functions, whereas risk factors for absenteeism were obtained by Cox regression. RESULTS: Overall, 594 workers took sick leaves, with an incidence of 23% at the end of the period. The most frequent diagnoses were back pain (38.5%), shoulder lesions (11.7%), and synovitis and tenosynovitis (8.8%). Cases of one episode of sick leave per worker over the 6 years predominated (42.8%). Cox regression multivariate analysis identified the following variables as posing the greatest risk for sick leave: female sex (hazard ratio 1.39), age older than 40 years (hazard ratio 2.57), judicial technician workers (hazard ratio 1.48), and administrative workers (hazard ratio 1.30). CONCLUSIONS: Women, older adults, and individuals who hold technical positions are worthy of attention from health management department of the court, since they presented the highest rates of incapacity to work during the study period. Back pain was the main reason for musculoskeletal disability.