Low back pain: Predictors of absenteeism, residual symptoms, functional impairment, and medical costs in Oregon workers' compensation recipients
✍ Scribed by Patricia G. Butterfield; Peter S. Spencer; Nadia Redmond; Adrianne Feldstein; Nancy Perrin
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1998
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 110 KB
- Volume
- 34
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0271-3586
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Background:
Wide variations in disability duration and magnitude have been noted among recipients of workers' compensation for low back pain. findings from recent studies have indicated that inclusion of a broad array of variables (i.e., physical, occupation, social, economic) is needed to understand differences in workers' responses to occupational low back pain.
Methods:
Workers' compensation and questionnaire data from 340 oregon workers with low back claims were merged to develop multivariate models predicting: (1) absenteeism days, (2) residual symptoms, (3) functional impairment, and (4) medical costs.
Results:
Forty-two percent of the variation in low back symptoms was explained by: discontinuing physical fitness activities post-injury (beta = -.419), self-reported low energy/high fatigue (beta = -.227), poorer general health (beta = .137), and attorney involvement in claim (beta = .117), (adjusted r2 = .418, p < 0.001). survival curves revealed significantly longer claim durations among workers who discontinued physical fitness activities post-injury, compared with workers who did not; these differences remained significant even after controlling for severity of the initial injury.
Conclusion:
Continuation of physical fitness activities during the recovery process was found to be a significant predictor in three of four regression models, providing evidence on behalf of a relationship between fitness and positive health outcomes. however, it was not possible to clearly differentiate pre-morbid from post-injury fitness, nor to determine if this relationship was due to a therapeutic effect on the back, the general restorative benefits of remaining active, or represents a proxy variable for workers' self-care efforts during recovery.