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Summary
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Another possible explanation may be due to physicians’ expectations
of female and male patients, which in turn can create differences in
prescription of sick leave and recommended length of sick leave.
In addition, the results show that a shorter prescribed length of sick
leave co-varies with shorter episodes of sickness benefit for women.
The sex difference may be due to men generally seeking care at a
later stage of disease than women, meaning that men may have
relatively more severe and long-lasting symptoms when they
eventually seek care.
Recommendations
There is a need for competence enhancement in insurance medicine
for physicians and other healthcare professionals who work directly
or indirectly with sickness certification tasks. It is also important that
guidelines regarding the sick leave process, available to healthcare
staff, continue to evolve from a gender perspective. There may also
be a need for renewed discussion about the physician’s role as the
first line gatekeeper for the sickness insurance system.
In order to examine care seeking behaviour in relation to sickness
certification and sick leave, there is a need for studies where sickness
certificate and sick leave data are combined with healthcare data.