Duration of Work Disability After Low Back Injury: A Comparison of Administrative and Self-Reported Outcomes

Details

• Personal Author:
  Brand RJ ; Dasinger LK ; Deegan LJ ; Krause N ; Rudolph L
• Description:
  Background: Workers' compensation wage replacement data have recently been used to estimate time to return to work (RTW) and the number of work days lost after occupational injury. The degree to which indemnity-based measures reflect self-reported work disability has until now not been studied. Method: Kaplan-Meier curves of administrative and self-reported measures of duration of work disability were compared within a sample of 433 low back injury claimants followed up for 1 to 3.7 years. Results: Administrative measures consistently and significantly underestimated the duration of disability when compared to self-reported measures of RTW. The difference between the estimated mean number of work days lost for comparable administrative and self-reported measures ranged from 142 to 334 days. Conclusions: Number of work days lost after low back injury is substantially underestimated by measures based on the duration of wage replacement benefits. This calls into question the adequacy of indemnity benefits and underscores the need for disability prevention programs. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Musculoskeletal Diseases Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Administration Author Keywords: Low Back Pain Back-injuries Data-processing Disabled-workers Injuries Injury-prevention Lost-work-days Musculoskeletal-system-disorders Return-to-work Survival-rate Survival Analysis Work Disability Workers' Compensation

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• ISSN:
  0271-3586
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  California ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  35
• Issue:
  6
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20031728
• Citation:
  Am J Ind Med 1999 Jun; 35(6):619-631
• Contact Point Address:
  Niklas Krause, MD, PhD, MPH, School of Public Health, Division of Epidemiology, 140 Warren Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-7360
• Email:
  nkrause@uclink4.berkeley.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1999
• NORA Priority Area:
  Research Tools and Approaches: Health Services Research
• Performing Organization:
  State of California, San Francisco, California
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  19950130
• Source Full Name:
  American Journal of Industrial Medicine
• End Date:
  19990929
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:3f41d042fac21ada76ee8e1587d94cf4672fcf9cfbd1f72dc729814e14071000860f10c28de17959681f7d81b1b96caa71241065e307114225d6874ee1d2d56e
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/185914/cdc_185914_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 213.05 KB ]