Yelin E, Henke J, Katz P P, Eisner M D, Blanc P D
Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco 94143-0920, USA.
Am J Ind Med. 1999 May;35(5):472-80. doi: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0274(199905)35:5<472::aid-ajim4>3.0.co;2-s.
Asthma has been found to be among the most common conditions in the working age population and is among the most common causes of work limitation, but we could find no longitudinal studies of employment among persons with this condition.
A panel of 601 persons with a diagnosis of asthma from random samples of northern California pulmonologists and allergy-immunologists were interviewed as many as three times at 18-month intervals by a trained survey worker to report on the severity of disease, demographic characteristics, and the extent of their employment. Their employment was then compared to that of a matched sample from the U.S. Bureau of the Census Current Population Survey.
Ninety-two percent of the persons with asthma had worked at some point prior to study enrollment. Among persons with onset during adulthood, only 29% of those who were not employed at disease onset were working at study enrollment, compared to 68% among those who were employed. Among the 420 persons interviewed three times, 75, 81, and 75%, respectively, were employed as of the three interviews. Among these 420, 66% were continuously employed and 15% were continuously not employed. The principal determinants of continuity of employment were demographic and employment characteristics, not medical ones. The employment rate and hours of work per week and per year of the persons with asthma were similar to the matched sample.
Asthma has not substantially impeded the employment of the persons with asthma we studied, with the exception that those who were not employed at disease onset continued to have low employment rates.
哮喘是劳动年龄人群中最常见的疾病之一，也是工作受限的最常见原因之一，但我们未能找到关于哮喘患者就业情况的纵向研究。
从北加利福尼亚州的肺科医生和过敏免疫科医生的随机样本中选取了601名被诊断为哮喘的患者组成一个小组，由一名经过培训的调查人员每隔18个月对他们进行多达三次的访谈，以了解疾病的严重程度、人口统计学特征以及他们的就业情况。然后将他们的就业情况与美国人口普查局当前人口调查中的匹配样本进行比较。
92%的哮喘患者在研究入组前曾在某个时候工作过。在成年期发病的患者中，发病时未就业的患者在研究入组时只有29%有工作，而发病时就业的患者这一比例为68%。在接受三次访谈的420人中，在三次访谈时分别有75%、81%和75%的人有工作。在这420人中，66%的人持续就业，15%的人持续未就业。就业连续性的主要决定因素是人口统计学和就业特征，而非医学因素。哮喘患者的就业率、每周和每年的工作时长与匹配样本相似。
除了发病时未就业的患者持续保持低就业率外，哮喘并未对我们所研究的哮喘患者的就业产生实质性阻碍。
