Alexithymia and 7.5-Year Incidence of Compensated Low Back Pain in 1207 Urban Public Transit Operators

Details

• Personal Author:
  Krause N ; Mehling WE
• Description:
  Objective: alexithymia, a lack of emotional awareness, was positively associated with self-reported low back pain (LBP) in cross-sectional studies. We assessed the association of alexithymia with 7.5-year incidence of LBP prospectively in a cohort study of 1207 San Francisco transit operators. Methods: alexithymia was measured by the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). LBP was assessed by physician-confirmed diagnoses from administrative workers' compensation data. Cox proportional hazards analyses controlled for demographic, behavioral, and physical and psychosocial job factors measured by questionnaire and interview. Results: of all drivers, 27.7% (n=334) filed compensated claims for LBP injuries with workers' compensation insurance during the 7.5-year observation time. The hazard ratios from the fully adjusted model were 0.73 (0.56-0.96) for the TAS-20 scale and 0.82 (0.69-0.98) for the subscale "difficulty describing feelings." Alexithymia scores did not predict the duration of compensated work disability. Conclusion: in contrast to previous cross-sectional positive associations between alexithymia and LBP, alexithymia is negatively associated with compensated LBP claims. We hypothesize that shame and reporting behavior may explain these inconsistent results. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Automobiles Behavior Demography Mental Health Musculoskeletal Diseases Occupational Health Safety Surveys And Questionnaires Workplace
• Keywords:
  Back-injuries Behavior-patterns Demographic-characteristics Drivers Job-analysis Physical-reactions Physiological-factors Psychological-effects Psychological-factors Quantitative-analysis Questionnaires Statistical-analysis Work-environment Worker-health

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• ISSN:
  0022-3999
• 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:
  62
• Issue:
  6
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20032524
• Citation:
  J Psychosom Res 2007 Jun; 62(6):667-674
• Contact Point Address:
  Wolf E. Mehling, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of California-San Francisco, Campus Box 1726, 1701 Divisadero, #150, San Francisco, CA 94143-1726, USA
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2007
• Performing Organization:
  Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, San Francisco General Hospital, University of California - San Francisco, San Francisco, California
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  19990930
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Psychosomatic Research
• End Date:
  20020929
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:929a9983fb514a81b94718a53e75eeea234cfadb6a73b434dff41ad89fa6d6782698e010a259a919ead2d2416329fa1c389f2f5bbf7e4324dd16a3f6f3082b14
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/186461/cdc_186461_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 144.43 KB ]