In a logistic regression, having a higher frequency of sickness certification consultations was associated with a higher risk of experiencing them as problematic, in both countries.
In spite of the many similarities between the social insurance systems of Sweden and Norway, several differences were found regarding the frequency of sickness certification consultation and to what extent different tasks and situations were experienced as problematic.
The correlations between the items in question 1 and the background variables sex, age group, educational level, being a specialist or not, number of years at the workplace and frequency of sickness certification consultations were likewise below 0.300.
The aim of this study was to gain knowledge about GPs' experiences of sickness certification regarding frequencies of sickness certification consultations and aspects they found problematic, and to compare this between Sweden and Norway.
Frequency of sickness-certification consultations as well as of related problems varied substantially with type of clinic.
The physicians in PHC had the highest ORs for experiencing problems, although they did not have the highest frequency of sickness-certification consultations.
In Table 2, frequencies of sickness certification consultations and of finding them problematic as well as to what extent the handling of sickness certification was perceived as problematic are presented by sex, age, and specialist status.
Sixteen types of clinical settings are presented in the results, physicians in primary health care (PHC) by far constitute the largest group (Table 1).> In Fig. 1 we show the frequencies of sickness certification consultations in different clinical settings to the left, and both frequency and extent of finding such tasks problematic to the right.
The frequency of problematic sickness certification consultations a few times per year or more often was considered by 87.3% of the psychiatrists; 11.7% handle such cases at least once a week.
The frequency of sick-leave certification in Malta is comparable to that in other European countries, but the average duration of certificates is much less than reported in other studies that generally did not include data on short-term illness and certification.
