The results indicate that considering the type of personality characteristics of injured workers may have important theoretical and practical implications.
A ttempts to develop a better understanding of the interaction between the compensation environment and injured workers suggest that the compensation environment may negatively impact on the psychological wellbeing of injured workers. This study offers a complementary perspective to contemporary quantitative studies exploring the psychosocial aspects of workplace injury and disability, and contributes to the growing body of qualitative data on the interaction of personal and environmental factors influencing recovery from work injury. The beliefs and experience of injured workers, as explored through ethnographic interviewing, offer insight to the social meaning and relationships comprised in the compensation environment and reveal the pervasive impact of workplace injury across personal, social and occupational spheres. Poor claims administration and hostile interpersonal interactions are identified as particular sources of frustration and discontent for injured workers. Strong themes of perceived injustice emerge as a potentially valuable area for future research in improving the outcomes of compensable injury.
Despite growing recognition of the importance of psychosocial factors in reducing ongoing work disability, research into the psychological consequences for injured workers who remain at, or return to work is limited. This study compares injured workers who have returned to, or remained at, work with noninjured workers on measures of personality, trauma symptoms, and symptoms of psychological distress. Data from structured clinical interviews, psychological and self-report questionnaires were gathered from 29 workers, 14 of whom were recovering from an injury at the time of participation. Injured workers demonstrated higher levels of Neuroticism and lower Extraversion, indicating greater emotional instability and lower capacity for adaptively coping with stress when compared to noninjured workers. They also reported subclinical elevations on scales of trauma symptoms, and greater levels of depressive symptoms, somatic complaints, anxiety and sleep disturbance in comparison with noninjured workers. These results suggest that the psychological consequences for workers who return to, or remain at, work following injury may reduce adaptation and increase vulnerability to secondary work disability.
In the case study, we report a novel strategy for the peripheral placement of neuromodulation leads for the treatment of phantom limb pain in a patient who subsequently described complete and consistent pain relief independent of significant variations in psychosocial stress.
This study explored the influence of personality traits on injured workers' interaction with workers' compensation systems. Data were collected from 89 participant claimants (males, 41; females 48, mean age = 45 years,SD= 10.67 years) at various levels of involvement with the workers' compensation system: previous claimants (n= 39), current claimants (n= 28), and nonclaimant workers (n= 22). Significant differences in personality traits were found between these groups of compensation claimants. Current compensation claimants displayed greater emotional instability and introversion compared with those less acutely involved in the compensation system. Current claimants also experienced clinically significant levels of symptoms of depression, anxiety, somatic complaints, and reported reduced social functioning, relative to previous and nonclaimants, respectively. Overall, subtle differences were found to exist in personality and psychological health between groups of workers at different levels of involvement with the workers' compensation system.
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