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Abstract
The objective was to explore if burnout, a syndrome from chronic work stress, predicts
work disability during eight years among industrial employees. We investigated whether
burnout would predict disability in initially healthy employees and all subgroups
by the most common causes for disability.
Of the participants in a company-wide survey (n=9705, 63%) performed in 1996, 8371
employees were identified and 7810 provided full information. The impact of burnout
and its sub-dimensions, assessed with the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey,
on being granted register-based new disability pension till 2004 was analysed with
Cox hazard regression and multinomial regression. The analyses were adjusted for socio-demographic
factors, registered medication use, and self-reported chronic illness at baseline.
The hazard ratio (HR) for new disability pension was 3.8 (95% confidence interval
CI 2.7-5.4) with severe burnout. The risk of severe burnout and severe exhaustion
for work disability attenuated but remained significant after adjustments. The association
between severe burnout and work disability was significant also in the subpopulation
of employees without registered medication at baseline but not among employees healthy
by self-report. Crude associations between burnout and all categories of cause-specific
disability were significant. The exhaustion dimension predicted work disability due
to mental and miscellaneous disorders after adjustments.
A non-random one-branch sample was used. The final sample covered 50% of eligible
employees.
In industrial work, burnout-related chronic work disability is general in nature.
Burnout predicts work disability among healthy employees when health is assessed with
registered use of medication but not when it is determined by self-report.