Health status before, during and after disability pension award: the Hordaland Health Study (HUSK)
- 1Research Centre for Health Promotion, Faculty of Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
- 2George Institute for International Health, Sydney, Australia
- 3Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, UK
- 4Department of Public Health and Primary Health Care, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
- 5Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Division of Mental Health, Oslo, Norway
- Simon Øverland, University of Bergen, Research Centre for Health Promotion, Christiesgate 13, N-5015 Bergen, Norway; Simon.overland{at}psyhp.uib.no
- Accepted 30 May 2008
Abstract
Objectives: Up to one in eight of the working age population receives permanent disability benefits. As little is known about the consequences of this major event, analysis aimed to compare health status before and after disability pension award.
Methods: Data from the population based Hordaland Health Study (HUSK) in Norway 1997–99 (n = 18 581) were linked to official disability benefits registries. The study identified 1087 participants who were awarded a disability pension before, during and after the health survey. These were grouped into different strata defined by temporal proximity between disability pension award and health survey participation. The study then compared health status across these strata covering the 7 years before to the 7 years after the award.
Results: The study found an inverse U-shaped trend with an increase in reported symptoms (anxiety, depression, pain distribution, sleep problems and somatic symptoms) approaching the award, and a reversing of this trajectory afterwards (p<0.05 for the non-linear trend for all symptoms). We found no similar trend for the more objective health measures blood pressure, physical diagnoses and prescribed medication. For most measures, similar levels of health problems were found 3–7 years before compared to 3–7 years after the award.
Conclusion: When comparing the strata defined by time to the event of disability pension award, there was an increase in symptoms around the time of the disability pension award, with a subsequent return towards pre-award levels. The design precludes any firm conclusions as to what causes the observed results, but possible explanations include temporary adverse health effects from the process itself, the beneficial effects of being removed from harmful work conditions, and recovery after increasing health problems leading up to disability pension award.
Footnotes
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Competing interests: None.
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Funding: MH is funded by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health, The South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London.
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Data collection was conducted as part of HUSK (the Hordaland Health Study 1997–99) in collaboration with the Norwegian National Health Screening Service.
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Ethics approval: The study protocol was approved by the Regional Committee for Medical Research Ethics, Western Norway and by the Norwegian Data Inspectorate.
