The prevalence of mental health problems and sickness absences due to them can vary over time and between different occupational groups. We used national register data to monitor different employee age groups in the healthcare and social welfare sector as well as in the art, culture and events sectors in 2010–2021. The national register data enables the monitoring of the working-age population’s health and work ability. The register data also enables the reliable identification of different occupational groups and the evaluation of health care appointments and absences associated with different diagnoses.
DESCRIPTION
The national register data is based on The State of Work Ability in Finland data, which is a national population sample that covers 90 per cent of working-age people (18–68-year-olds). The data enables the monitoring of specialized health care appointments, sickness absences and disability pensions in different occupational groups. The data presented here includes all permanent residents of Finland between the ages of 18–68 who were employed at the end of each year under review (as their main type of activity in the last week of the year). The register data is based on the data provided by Statistics Finland, Kela, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and the Finnish Centre for Pensions. The follow-up covers the years 2010–2021, for which the occupational data of Statistics Finland is comprehensive and comparable. For 2020 and 2021, individuals who turned 18 have been excluded. Therefore, the youngest individuals included in the data for this time period are 19–20-year-olds. The analyses were carried out for the data as a whole as well as by age group (ages 18–29, 30–39, 40–49 and 50–68).
Names and codes of the healthcare and social welfare professions included in the review (occupational classification 2010): ▼
Names and codes of the professions in the art, culture and events sectors included in the review (occupational classification 2010): ▼
WHAT THE INDICATORS DESCRIBE
The mental health diagnoses in specialized health care include all mental health diagnoses from the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare’s Hilmo system for each year (2010–2021), regardless of the treatment period’s duration. The mental health diagnoses include all F codes in the ICD-10 classification that are recorded as the main diagnosis under a speciality category other than general medicine or omission.
The share of employees who received sickness allowance refers to the share of employees who have had at least one sickness allowance period paid by Kela (longer than 10 days) during the year under review. All sickness allowance periods that extended to the year under review by at least one day were included in the analysis, but partial sickness allowance and YEL allowance were omitted. The share of mental health-based sickness allowance periods was obtained by filtering the data to only include code F diagnoses (ICD-10 classification).
The share of people receiving newly granted disability pensions in the two-year follow-up includes individuals who were employed in the year under review but received disability pension during the next two years. For example, the statistics for 2010 include all individuals who were employed that year but received disability pension either in 2011 or 2012. The disability pension data used was either obtained from Kela’s data on pensions paid or from the Finnish Centre for Pensions’ pension register. The disability pension data includes all individuals who received disability pension for at least one month during the two-year follow-up period. The data includes full disability pension that is payable indefinitely and fixed-term full rehabilitation subsidy. In addition, the share of mental health-based disability pensions (of employees during the follow-up period) was obtained in a similar manner by limiting the data to disability pensions granted on the basis of a code F primary diagnosis (ICD-10 classification). With regard to the art, culture and events sectors, the share of mental health-based disability pensions in different age groups has been omitted from 2010 due to the scarcity of data (<5 people) in some age groups.
