Not taking sick leave is negatively associated with women undergoing gynecologic cancer treatment returning to the same workplace

Abstract BACKGROUND: Gynecologic cancers are one of the most common types of malignancies in working-age women. We aimed to determine which factors impede women from returning to the same workplace after treatment for such cancers. METHODS: A questionnaire-based survey was conducted on 194 women who underwent treatment for gynecologic cancer at Okayama University (≥1 year after cancer treatment and <65 years of age). We compared patient characteristics by using the Mann–Whitney U-test. We also performed univariate logistic regression analysis to determine the relationship between returning to the same workplace and several patient characteristics. RESULTS: The median age at diagnosis was 49.0 years, and the median time from cancer treatment to questionnaire completion was 3.8 years. Not returning to the same workplace was positively associated with not taking sick leave (P<0.001). Not taking sick leave was positively associated with working ≤5 hours per day and having a low personal income (P=0.049 and P=0.018, respectively). Time to return to the same workplace was positively related to the duration of cancer treatment (P=0.002). CONCLUSION: Not taking sick leave likely was negatively associated with returning to the same workplace after treatment for gynecologic cancer. Therefore, we suggest that steps be taken to formally introduce a sick leave system over and above the paid leave system in Japan.