Scientific institute of the AOK
Berlin (ots)
A current evaluation by the Scientific Institute of the AOK (WIdO) shows that since the beginning of the pandemic, almost 30 percent of all continuously employed AOK-insured persons have been absent from their company at least once in connection with a Covid-19 disease. Up to and including December 2022, almost 1 percent of employees were affected by a post-Covid illness. In terms of general sick leave, the WIdO recorded a historic high last year.
Between March 2020 and December 2022, around 2.3 million of the total of 7.7 million continuously employed AOK insured persons were declared unable to work at least once in connection with a Covid 19 disease. 71,651 employees were affected by a post-Covid-19 illness. After several ups and downs, both acute and post-Covid diseases reached their preliminary peak in spring 2022.
To analyze the effects of the different virus variants, the sick leave data of employees with a sick leave report due to an acute Covid-19 illness was followed up for seven months. It was shown that between September and December 2021, when the so-called delta variant dominated, 2.5 percent (n = 5,477) of the acutely ill people developed a post-Covid illness. This means that their share is twice as high as in the time when the omicron variant prevailed. Here, only 1.1 percent (n = 9,171) of all those affected by acute Covid developed a post-Covid illness. The average length of incapacity to work due to a post-Covid illness is also significantly higher at an average of 43.2 days during the period in which the delta variant prevailed than in the period in which the omicron variant prevailed (30, 9 days).
“In the course of the pandemic so far, only comparatively few employees have been on sick leave because of post-Covid. However, these relatively few affected people have long periods of sick leave averaging 30 days. It must be possible to pave the way for these employees to return to everyday work”, comments Helmut Schröder, deputy managing director of the WIdO, on these results. “The good news is that both the number of people affected and the severity of the disease, which can be derived from the days lost, have decreased over the course of the pandemic,” says Schröder.
Numerous comorbidities in post-Covid
In more than 8 percent of all post-Covid illnesses, an acute infection of the upper respiratory tract was also documented on the sick leave certificate. Other comorbidities that are also frequently documented are above all malaise and fatigue (4.7 percent), dyspnea or shortness of breath (3.4 percent), cough (almost 2 percent), neurasthenia (1.5 percent) and headaches (1.4 Percent).
Older employees longer affected by lost work due to Covid
The results of the WIdO also show that the length of incapacity to work for employees who are affected by Covid diseases increases significantly with age. This applies to both acute and post-Covid illnesses. While employees under the age of 30 were on average 7.2 days unfit for work due to an acute illness and 16.7 days due to a post-Covid illness, employed persons aged 60 and over lost an average of 11.8 days and 45.1 days respectively. Across all employees, there was an average of nine lost days for acute Covid illnesses and an average of 30 days for post-Covid illnesses.
Child care and education among those most affected
Like previous evaluations by the WIdO, the current analysis also shows that in the course of the pandemic so far, the most acute Covid illnesses have been in occupations in childcare and education (32,240 sick people per 100,000 employees). In the case of post-Covid diseases, they are in second place with 1,377 sufferers per 100,000 employees, behind employees in occupational therapy with 1,578 sufferers per 100,000 employees. There were also a particularly large number of absences from work due to acute Covid diagnoses in occupations in social administration and insurance (31,152 sick people per 100,000 employees), pharmaceutical-technical assistants (30,886 sick people per 100,000 employees) and among medical clerks (30,454 sick people per 100,000 employees). “It is noticeable that the professional groups that were most affected by acute Covid diseases did not necessarily have the most post-Covid absences as a result,” says Schröder. “This abnormality can probably be explained by differences between the occupational groups in terms of age distribution, gender distribution and previous illnesses.”
Highest general sick leave in 2022 since 1991
At 6.7 percent, the general sick leave in 2022 reached the highest level since the beginning of the nationwide analysis of data from AOK-insured employees. The main drivers of this development were respiratory diseases: While in 2021 20.6 percent (n = 3,004,264) of all insured employees were unable to work due to respiratory diseases, this rate increased to 41.6 percent (n = 6,293,757) in 2022. doubled.
Methodological notes on the Covid evaluations:
High number of unreported cases of acute Covid diseases
An acute Covid diagnosis was documented in advance in just under half of all continuously insured persons with a post-Covid diagnosis (n = 38,723). However, it cannot be concluded from this that the other half did not have an acute Covid disease. Rather, it can be assumed that false-negative test results, symptom-free or undetected acute Covid diseases, acute Covid illness periods of up to three days of incapacity for work and different documentation habits among the service providers have led to the available figures. It is also striking that the periods of incapacity for work of people who had documented acute Covid illness before the post-Covid illness were, at an average of six weeks (37.2 days), significantly longer than those without previously documented acute Covid illness. illness (21.4 days).
Long-term consequences of Covid still difficult to quantify
The mapping of the long-term consequences of Covid-related illnesses for the ability to work is made more difficult by the distribution of the illness over many different billing diagnoses. For example, one speaks of “Long Covid” when complaints in connection with an acute Covid disease last longer than 28 days without this being documented as an independent billing diagnosis. In the data analyzed by WIdO, this affects 2 percent (n = 77,017) of all those affected by acute Covid diseases. Another difficulty is the observation that an acute Covid infection can trigger various secondary diseases. For example, the “chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalopathy” with 21,399 sufferers and an average of 32.4 days of absence from work per case of illness between March 2020 and December 2022 was taken into account in the evaluation. In addition, there are organ-specific diseases and various psychosomatic and psychiatric complaints in which the late effects of Covid can manifest themselves. If one also takes the case definition of the WHO as a basis, which under the term “post-Covid condition” names the symptoms of shortness of breath, fatigue and cognitive disorders as essential for the disease, this makes it even more difficult to realistically depict the course of the disease on the basis of routine data. In the accounting data available to the WIdO, there may also be an under-recording of both acute infections and post-Covid diseases, since acute Covid infections can also be documented unspecifically as respiratory tract infections. Post-Covid diseases can also be coded using a variety of symptoms – for example fatigue (ICDs: G93, F43, F48), dyspnea (ICDs: R06, J96, F45) or cognitive disorders (ICDs: F06, F07).
More information online: https://www.wido.de
Press contact:
Scientific institute of the AOK
press office
Peter Willenborg
Telephone: 030 34646 2467
Mobile: 0173 / 8607866
Email: [email protected]
Original content from: AOK Scientific Institute, transmitted by news aktuell
