Patterns of sick-leave and health outcomes in injured workers with back pain

Abstract

Little is known about the sick-leave experiences of workers who make a workers' compensation claim for back pain. Our objective is to describe the 1-year patterns of sick-leave and the health outcomes of a cohort of workers who make a workers' compensation claim for back pain. We studied a cohort of 1,831 workers from five large US firms who made incident workers' compensation claims for back pain between January 1, 1999 and June 30, 2002. Injured workers were interviewed 1 month (n = 1,321), 6 months (n = 810) and 1 year (n = 462) following the onset of their pain. We described the course of back pain using four patterns of sick-leave: (1) no sick-leave, (2) returned to worked and stayed, (3) multiple episodes of sick-leave and (4) not yet returned to work. We described the health outcomes as back and/or leg pain intensity, functional limitations and health-related quality of life. We analyzed data from participants who completed all followup interviews (n = 457) to compute the probabilities of transition between patterns of sick-leave. A significant proportion of workers experienced multiple episodes of sick-leave (30.2%; 95% CI 25.0-35.1) during the 1-year follow-up. The proportion of workers who did not report sick-leave declined from 42.4% (95% CI 39.0-46.1) at 1 month to 33.6% (28.0-38.7) at 1 year. One year after the injury, 2.9% (1.6-4.9) of workers had not yet returned to work. Workers who did not report sick-leave and those who returned and stayed at work reported better health outcomes than workers who experienced multiple episodes of sick-leave or workers who had not returned to work. Almost a third of workers with an incident episode of back pain experience recurrent spells of work absenteeism during the following year. Our data suggest that stable patterns of sick-leave are associated with better health.

Prevalence, consequences and predictors of low back pain among nurses in a tertiary care setting

“…Pain-related disability in chronic low back pain patients varies between 11 % and 76 % [45,46] and this great variation is due to the disability concepts adopted as well as the different methods used to measure this phenomenon. In the present study, one-third to one-half of all nurses with low back pain showed difficulty in one or more of their activities of daily living, in the form of difficulty in sleeping (33.3 %), getting out of bed (30.4 %), standing up (39.9 %), walking (42.8 %), climbing stairs (50.7 %) and wearing clothes (20.3 %).…”

Incapacidade relacionada à dor lombar crônica: prevalência e fatores associados

“…Disability in chronic low back pain patients varies between 11% and 76% (5)(6) and this great variation is due to the disability concepts adopted as well as the different methods used to measure this phenomenon. This variation makes comparisons among studies difficult.…”

Case management vocational rehabilitation for women with breast cancer after surgery: a feasibility study incorporating a pilot randomised controlled trial

“…A study conducted in North America found that women treated for breast cancer missed an average of 44.5 days from work within the first 6 months following diagnosis; the median days missed was 22 [20]. Length of work absence is important because sickness absence is a risk factor for permanently leaving the workforce [21]. A survey of 267 cancer survivors (48% were breast cancer survivors) in England found that the length of sick leave was significantly related to return to work within 18 months of cancer diagnosis [odds ratio 1.68, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.23-2.28] [22].…”