Objective: To assess some of the employment experiences of people with diabetes mellitus and to compare their experiences with those of a non-diabetic sibling control group.
Design: A questionnaire about employment experiences was administered to diabetic subjects aged 16-39 years, and an abbreviated questionnaire was administered to their eligible siblings.
Setting: The Illawarra area of New South Wales.
Participants: The names of diabetic subjects were obtained from the Illawarra diabetes register.
Results: Interviews were conducted with 184 of 226 (81.4%) eligible diabetic subjects and with 70 eligible siblings. There were no significant differences between the diabetic subjects and their siblings with respect to educational achievements and rates of employment. Siblings reported a mean of 2.6 days sickness absenteeism in the year prior to the survey. Diabetics were absent from work for a mean of 4.5 days for reasons not related to their diabetes and for a mean of 2.6 days for diabetic causes. Within the diabetic group, 50% felt that having diabetes would make it more difficult to find another job, 33.7% felt that diabetes would influence their search for alternative employment and 19.6% felt that at some stage they had been refused employment because of their diabetes. Fifteen per cent of diabetics were aware of an example of discrimination and 24.2% of diabetics in employment had at some stage tried to hide their diagnosis from their employer.
Conclusions: Diabetics do not appear disadvantaged compared with their siblings with respect to employment participation but are more likely to be absent from work due to sickness. However, many diabetic subjects had experienced a job refusal, had tried to hide their diagnosis from employers, were aware of examples of discrimination and were very negative about future employment prospects.