Unemployed long-term sicklisted people in rural Jämtland compared with circumstances in the city of Stockholm,Sweden

Objectives: The dual aims of this study were to investigate the unemployed sicklisted in an area of rural northern Sweden and to compare the results with results obtained earlier from the city of Stockholm.

Study design: Data were obtained mainly from the social insurance office registers. The study covers 795 cases.

Results: The results show the unexpected finding that the proportion of unemployed among sicklisted people was lower in the northern rural area (15%) than in Stockholm (20%). Mental diagnoses were, as in Stockholm, more common among the unemployed, especially among the men. In Jämtland it is more common for the employed to leave the social insurance system after sick leave than is the case for the unemployed. The latter, instead, tend to start a new period of sick leave or a period on rehabilitation allowance. In Stockholm it was more common that the unemployed compared with the employed replaced a sick period with a temporary disability pension.

Conclusions: The study indicates that the unemployed sicklisted people are a group with special needs concerning rehabilitation. This poses a special challenge to the rehabilitation counsellors working with the unemployed.