And he said that many investigations involving sickness from produce did not find contaminated food because by the time officials became aware of the outbreak, the tainted produce had been eaten or discarded.
The guide focused on the physician's own experience of handling cases involving sickness certification, and descriptions of specific examples.
Most GPs reported having consultations involving sickness certification at least once a week; 95% of the GPs in Sweden and 99% of the GPs in Norway.
From among these physicians, we included the 579 physicians (53% women) in the analyses who 'at least once a week had consultations involving sickness certification' (Table 1).
This study included 4019 physicians who regularly had patient consultations involving sickness certification, and the majority of these professionals indicated that they needed to develop their knowledge and skills in relation to the process of certifying sick leave.
In general, there were only limited differences between GPs of different educational levels and with different frequency of consultations involving sickness certification, respectively, regarding problems in applying the guidelines and need for further competence in using them.
The 579 specialists in psychiatry who answered the questionnaire, were under 65 years of age, worked mainly in psychiatric care, and had consultations involving sickness certification at least once a week were included.
Facilitation of such contacts was reported by a larger proportion of the GPs with only a medical degree and the GPs who had fewer consultations involving sickness certification (table 2).
By asking the orthopaedic surgeons to describe, in their own words, how they manage real cases involving sickness certification, we received material that was close to their actual practice and where their way of presentation to a great extent reflected their views.
The results were stratified by sex, age group (24 44, 45 64 or >64 years), educational level (medical degree, registered physician, in resident training or specialist) and frequency of consultations involving sickness certification (more than five times a week, one to five times a week, less than once a week).
