Table 1

Baseline characteristics and details of follow-up of the sample according to psychological distress at recruitment (n=17205)

Characteristics	GHQ^*=0 (n=10270) %	GHQ=1–2 (n=2878) %	GHQ=3–7 (n=2772) %	GHQ=8–12 (n=1285) %
Baseline characteristics (2002)
Age (years), mean (SD)	45.0 (12.3)	39.6 (12.4)	38.8 (12.2)	40.0 (11.7)
Female gender	51.7	57.1	65.0	70.0
Cohabiting	76.0	68.4	65.0	62.3
Unemployed	1.7	2.9	4.7	8.2
Income lowest quartile^†	20.2	27.7	30.2	32.4
Born outside Sweden	13.1	14.3	15.3	17.4
Education up to 9 years	11.8	11.2	10.2	10.3
Sedentary lifestyle	11.2	15.7	16.9	21.4
Current daily tobacco smoker	14.7	15.8	16.5	19.5
Cannabis use in past year	1.2	2.2	2.9	2.7
BMI^‡<20 kg/m²	6.2	8.1	9.1	9.0
BMI^‡>30 kg/m²	8.0	7.9	7.9	9.2
Physical illness^§ (self-report not on register)	11.8	11.8	10.8	12.6
Physical illness^§ (register)	24.6	27.9	30.4	33.5
Pain^¶	11.4	14.2	16.8	25.2
Diagnosis of common mental disorder^**	0.5	1.0	1.7	5.3
Other psychiatric illness^**	0.2	0.3	0.3	0.7
Follow-up
Person-years follow-up	50457.7	14020.6	13432.2	5954.3
Number of incident disability pensioners (DPs)	251 (2.4)	108 (3.8)	141 (5.1)	149 (11.6)
Number of incident DPs for mental illness	45	27	52	79
Number of incident DPs for physical illness	206	81	89	70

↵* Baseline score on 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) using standard (0011) scoring.
↵† Total household income—recoded to quartiles.
↵‡ Body mass index calculated by self-reported height and weight.
↵§ Physical illness (self-report not on register), report of physical illness diagnosed by a doctor but not on secondary care register; Physical illness (register), those on secondary care register with any physical illness diagnosis.
↵¶ Pain—self-report of daily pain in neck, back or shoulder.
↵** From secondary care register—common mental disorders (ICD-10 F32-48); other mental illness, any ICD-10 diagnosis of mental or behavioural disorder except ICD-10 F32-48.