Trends in return to work of breast cancer survivors

Abstract

Conclusions:In the Netherlands, the proportion of employed women who fully resumed working after breast cancer within one year of diagnosis has decreased since 2002. These results warrant more epidemiological research to examine the trends in RTW of breast cancer survivors across countries.

Return to work after treatment for breast cancer

“…After 1 month from diagnosis 45% of patients stopped work and after 3 to 9 months 55,3% of patients stopped work. In our group of patients, 77,9% of them had full RTW after a median delay of 10,3 months, that is inferior when compared with the delay reported by Roelen et al [1]. Anxiety and depression seem affect employment by decreasing work hours, and increasing absence.…”

“…Also the importance of social support from the workplace in relation to sickness absence in general is well documented [7] and more recently Johnsson et al [8], in their study, clearly demonstrated the importance of social support from the employer and coworkers for the return to work. Work is important for individual's identity and provides also a social connection, however the experience of continuing or returning to work following cancer and related treatment is a largely unknown area of cancer research , so we believe that the report of Roelen et al [1] …”

“…In their interesting article "Trends in return to work of breast cancer survivors", published online inJanuary 2011 issue of "Breast Cancer Research and Treatment", Roelen et al [1] demonstrated that partial return to work (RTW) one year after the diagnosis of breast cancer was more or less stable around 70% in the period from 2002 to 2008, whereas full RTW showed a decreasing trend in women of all ages. We recently reported preliminary results of a prospective study aimed to explore the influence of breast cancer and related treatments about the decision to stop or to return to work [2,3].…”

Cancer rehabilitation indicators for Europe

“…[23][24][25][26][29][30][31]38 To quantify the rehabilitation services used by cancer survivors, cancer registry databases can be linked with those of the structures providing rehabilitation services. For example, a Danish study combined cancer registry and population-based databases to assess hospitalisation for depression as a measure of the psychological burden experienced by cancer patients.…”

“…For example a Dutch study used the ArboNed Occupational Health Service register, containing sickness absence data and medical diagnoses for 1 million Dutch wage earners working in 33,000 companies in various economic sectors, to estimate return to work. [23][24][25][26] Cancer registry data were linked to census data in Finland, 27,28 with the Directorate of Taxes database in Norway, 29 and with the Labour Market Research Database in Denmark. 30,31 However, these methods of study cannot be extended to other countries because the occupational databases exploited by these studies do not exist in most other European countries.…”