Adolescent Spinal Pain-Related Absenteeism as an Antecedent for Early Adulthood Work Presenteeism.

OBJECTIVES This study investigated spinal pain-related absenteeism at age 17 as a potential precursor to work presenteeism at age 23. METHODS A longitudinal study was performed with Raine Study Gen2 participants (n = 451). Spinal pain-related absenteeism from school/work was collected at the 17 year follow-up. Presenteeism (due to ill-health or any other reason) was collected quarterly during one year around the age of 23. Zero-inflated binominal regression analysis was conducted. RESULTS Participants with adolescent spinal pain-related absenteeism reported higher work presenteeism in early adulthood than those without pain (155.7 hours/year compared to 77.7 hours/year), with an incident risk ratio (95% confidence interval) of 1.41 (1.04 to 1.92) after adjusting for sex, occupational class and multimorbidity count. CONCLUSIONS Targeting factors associated with absenteeism behaviours during early life may have significant benefits for future work productivity.