Worker Recovery Expectations and Fear-Avoidance Predict Work Disability in a Population-Based Workers’ Compensation Back Pain Sample

Details

• Personal Author:
  Egan K ; Franklin G ; Fulton-Kehoe D ; Gluck JV ; Sheppard L ; Turner JA ; Wickizer TM ; Wu R
• Description:
  Prospective, population-based cohort study. To examine whether worker demographic, pain, disability, and psychosocial variables, assessed soon after work-related back pain disability onset, predict 6-month work disability. Greater age, pain, and physical disability, and certain psychosocial characteristics may be risk factors for prolonged back pain-related work disability, although many studies have been small, findings have been inconsistent, and some psychosocial variables have not been examined prospectively. Workers (N = 1,068) completed telephone interviews assessing demographic, pain, disability, and psychosocial variables 18 days (median) after submitting Workers' Compensation back pain disability claims. Administrative measures of work disability 6 months after claim submission were obtained. At 6 months, 196 workers (18.4%) were receiving work disability compensation. Age, race, education, and baseline pain and disability were significant predictors of 6-month disability. Adjusting for baseline demographics, pain, disability, and other psychosocial variables, high work fear-avoidance (odds ratio, 4.6; 95% confidence interval, 1.6-13.7) and very low recovery expectations (odds ratio, 3.1, 95% confidence interval, 1.5-6.5) were significant independent predictors. Among individuals with acute work-related back pain, high pain and disability, low recovery expectations, and fears that work may increase pain or cause harm are risk factors for chronic work disability. Description provided by NIOSH
• Subjects:
  • Age Factors
  • Demography
  • Musculoskeletal Diseases
  • Occupational Health
  • Race Factors
  • Risk Assessment
  • Risk Factors
  • Safety
  • Sex Characteristics
• Keywords:
  • Workers
  • Worker-health
  • Disabled-workers
  • Injuries
  • Traumatic-injuries
  • Back-injuries
  • Risk-analysis
  • Risk-factors
  • Demographic-characteristics
  • Age-factors
  More +
• ISSN:
  0362-2436
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 10 ; Washington
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  31
• Issue:
  6
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20029771
• Citation:
  Spine 2006 Mar; 31(6):682-689
• Email:
  jturner@u.washington.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2006
• Performing Organization:
  University of Washington
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20010930
• Source Full Name:
  Spine
• End Date:
  20070929
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/190684/cdc_190684_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 567.99 KB]
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:3f903281917bb2a55dd821e9430fa704e6a42856ad79b74ef586d08bfa94a2b48cdcec722134ec757abd6ea47d9df6ed60a5ec79385ddc575835fc123dd0fe74