Osteoarthritis is one of the leading causes of disability in working-age patients. The total number of working-age patients undergoing total-knee arthroplasty (TKA) is continuously increasing. The purpose of this study was to identify predictive factors related to general health, health risk behaviors and socioeconomic status influencing the rate of return to work after a TKA.

Overall
there were 151,901 patients included in the Finnish Public Sector (FPS)
study. The response rate varied between 65 and 73% during the study
period. We used Cox proportional hazard models
to examine patient-related predictive factors that may influence the
rate of return to work after TKA in a cohort of patients (n = 452;
n = 362 female; mean age 56.4 years). Predictive factors were measured
on average 3.6 years before the operation.

Of the patients, 87% returned to work within one year after TKA at a mean of 116 calendar days. In multivariate analysis, patients at sick-leave ≤ 30 days
during the last year before surgery were 2.2 times (95% confidence
interval 1.72–2.92) more likely to return to work compared with those
with > 30 days of sick-leave. Compared with patients in manual work,
those in higher or lower level non-manual work showed a 2.6-fold
(1.95–3.52) and 1.5-fold (1.15–1.92) increased probability of returning
to work. Age, sex, health risk behaviors, obesity, physical
comorbidities, common mental disorders, and other studied health-related
factors were not associated with the rate of return to work.

Non-manual job, good self-rated general health and preoperative sick leave ≤ 30 days are associated with a higher rate of return to work.