OBJECTIVES: United States employers provide a variety of absence benefits to their employees. Employees can utilize paid leaves for nonwork-related injuries/illnesses under the Short-term and Long-term Disability (STD and LTD) benefit and for work-related injuries/illnesses under Workers’ Compensation (WC). This study evaluated the effect of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) on absence benefits utilization.

METHODS: Retrospective evaluation of the Workpartners Research Reference Database (RRDb) identified employees with MDD based on ICD-10 codes from 2018—2022. Three employee controls without MDD were identified per MDD employee, with the index date randomly assigned. STD/LTD/WC identified based on claims filed. The likelihood of using a benefit was modeled with stepwise logistic models, and two-stage (logistic followed by generalized linear model) stepwise regression was used to compare the absence costs and days of leave per covered employee under each benefit. All stepwise regression models controlled for differences in comprehensive demographics (age, gender, self-reported race, marital status), job-related variables (salary, full-/part-time status, exempt/non-exempt status), and region of the US. All differences significant at p<0.001, unless noted.

RESULTS: We identified 7,888 employees with MDD and 23,586 non-MDD controls. Within two years of the index date, the MDD cohort had a higher likelihood of disability claims (STD 14.8% vs 6.7%, LTD 0.6 vs 0.2%), more disability days per covered employee (STD 8.8 [Standard Error 0.3] vs 3.0 [.01], LTD 2.1 [0.03] vs 0.4 [0.01]) and higher disability costs (STD $1341 [$39] vs $482 [$12], LTD $202 [$30] vs $38 [$6]). The MDD cohort also had a higher likelihood of WC claims (1.7% vs 1.2%, p=0.0032) and higher WC costs ($156 [$15] vs $96 [$6]). Workers’ Compensation days were similar (p>0.05) for both cohorts.

CONCLUSIONS: Employees with Major Depressive Disorder were more likely to take disability and workers' compensation leaves than controls. The MDD cohort also had more absence costs and days of leave.