You are here

  • Home
  • Online First
  • Decrease in sick leave among patients with rheumatoid arthritis in the first 12 months after start of treatment with tumour necrosis factor antagonists: a population-based controlled cohort study

Article Text

Article menu

other Versions

Download PDFPDF
Basic and translational research
Extended report
Decrease in sick leave among patients with rheumatoid arthritis in the first 12 months after start of treatment with tumour necrosis factor antagonists: a population-based controlled cohort study
  1. Tor Olofsson1,2,
  2. Martin Englund1,3,
  3. Tore Saxne2,
  4. Anna Jöud1,
  5. Lennart T H Jacobsson4,
  6. Pierre Geborek2,
  7. Saralynn Allaire3,
  8. Ingemar F Petersson1,2
  1. 1Musculoskeletal Sciences, Department of Orthopedics, Clinical Sciences Lund, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
  2. 2Section of Rheumatology, Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
  3. 3Clinical Epidemiology Research and Training Unit, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  4. 4Section of Rheumatology, Department of Clinical Sciences, Malmö, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
  1. Correspondence to Tor Olofsson, Department of Rheumatology, Lund University Hospital, SE-22185 Lund, Sweden; torolofsson{at}hotmail.com

Abstract

Objective To investigate the effect of tumour necrosis factor (TNF) antagonist treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) on sick leave (SL) and disability pension (DP) in a population-based setting in southern Sweden.

Methods All patients with RA in the South Swedish Arthritis Treatment Group register living in the county of Skåne (population 1.2 million), who started their first treatment with a TNF antagonist between January 2004 and December 2007 and were 18–58 years at treatment start (n=365), were identified. For each patient with RA, four matched reference subjects from the general population were randomly selected. Data were linked to the Swedish Social Insurance Agency register and the point prevalence of SL and DP as well as days of SL and DP per month were calculated from 360 days before until 360 days after treatment start.

Results At treatment start 38.6% of the patients with RA were registered for SL. During the first 6 months this share dropped to 28.5% (decrease by 26.2%, p<0.001). This level remained stable throughout the first treatment year. Comparing patients with RA to the reference group the relative risk of being on SL was 6.6 (95% CI 5.2 to 8.5) at initiation of anti-TNF treatment and 5.2 (95% CI 4.0 to 6.8) 1 year after that. The corresponding figures for DP were 3.4 (95% CI 2.7 to 4.2) and 3.2 (95% CI 2.7 to 3.9).

Conclusions There was a marked decline in SL during the first 6 months of TNF antagonist treatment in patients with RA in southern Sweden, maintained throughout the first year, which was not offset by a corresponding increase in DP.

https://doi.org/10.1136/ard.2009.127852

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Funding This study was funded by unrestricted grants from The Swedish Research Council, Region Skåne, The Swedish Social Insurance Agency, Lund University, Lund University Hospital, Österlund and Kock Foundations, The Swedish Rheumatism Association and King Gustav V 80-Year Fund.

    • Competing interests None.

    • Ethical approval This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Lund University, Sweden.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.