Introduction: The healthcare sector in many countries, including Sweden, is highly gender segregated with more female than male employees. During the last decades, reports on exacerbating job demands and sickness absence have increased.

Methods: Register data on sickness absence, comprising all female employees in the healthcare sector in Sweden in 2014 (N=210,909) and in 2018 (N=223,715), were analyzed. Logistic regressions yielding odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) of new SA (in SA spells >14 days) and of long-term SA (>90 days) due to all cause diagnoses and mental diagnoses respectively, in 2018 compared to 2014, were estimated, adjusting for age, educational level and country of birth.

Results: The risk of new SA and long-term SA due to a mental diagnosis were somewhat higher in 2018, OR 1.14, CI; 1.11 - 1.17 and OR 1.13, CI; 1.08 - 1.18, while no significant associations could be established in relation to SA due to all-cause diagnoses. After adjustments, the results did not change and remained significant.

Discussion: The somewhat higher risk of SA in mental diagnoses over time was not significantly affected by sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors previously shown to influence SA. Psychosocial and emotional work demands together with reports on threats and violence may increase job strain in health workers and influence the risk of SA due to mental diagnoses.

Conclusion: In preventing SA due to mental diagnoses among health workers an effective measure may be to closely monitor various dimensions of work demands.

© The Author(s) 2024