Important work demands for reducing sickness absence among workers with neck or upper back pain: a prospective cohort study

Table 5 One year registered sickness-absence net days (n-days) > 14 days for groups reporting high or low physical work demand exposure

	Work demand exposure
	Low		High
	N	Mean n-days	N	Mean n-days	P*
Hands at shoulder level or higher
All	3782	10	736	11	0.18
Women	2597	11	395	12	0.56
Men	1185	9	341	10	< 0.05
16–29 years	398	4	121	6	0.38
30–49 years	1788	10	321	12	< 0.05
50–64 years	1596	13	294	12	0.68
Whole-body vibrations
All	4245	10	283	17	0.27
Women	2959	11	48	23	0.64
Men	1286	8	235	15	< 0.05
16–29 years	486	4	34	12	0.77
30–49 years	1978	10	134	18	0.07
50–64 years	1781	13	115	16	0.94
Repetitive movements
All	2873	10	1625	11	0.68
Women	1956	11	1021	12	0.62
Men	917	9	604	10	0.06
16–29 years	273	3	246	5	0.98
30–49 years	1405	9	693	11	0.61
50–64 years	1195	13	686	13	0.65
Seated work
All	1970	13	2558	9	< 0.01
Women	1287	14	1712	10	< 0.01
Men	683	11	846	9	< 0.01
16–29 years	262	5	256	3	0.21
30–49 years	855	12	1260	9	< 0.01
50–64 years	853	15	1042	11	< 0.05

Four thousand five hundred sixty-seven workers with self-reported neck or upper back pain by gender and age group. Mean number of n-days for description only. P values indicate the difference in distribution of sick days between reporting high or low exposure. Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test * = two tailed; bold numbers indicate a statistically significant difference. N = number of workers

ISSN: 1471-2474