Objective. To identify barriers to return to work (RTW) among persons likely to be seen in a clinician's practice who are unemployed due to arthritis and musculoskeletal disorders.Methods. Two hundred eighteen persons unemployed due to arthritis and musculoskeletal disorders were interviewed at baseline and followed up for 1 year, at which time their work status was ascertained. Backward stepwise logistic regression was used to determine the association of baseline clinical, sociodemographic, and work-related factors to their work status at 1 year of Results. Fifty-one (24%) of 216 initially unemployed subjects had returned to permanent paid employment of 220 hourdweek after 1 year. Having rheumatoid arthritis, Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) status, a high pain level, older age, and lower education were barriers to reemployment.Conclusion. This study establishes the importance of chronic pain and having rheumatoid arthritis as factors independently associated with failure to RTW among persons unemployed due to arthritis and musculoskeletal disorders. The importance of SSDI beneficiary status, age, and education level in RTW is further followup.
Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) may have a variety of neuropsychiatric syndromes. Assessment of cognitive functioning for these patients is complicated by increased prevalence and disease severity among groups obtained lower scores on measures of cognitive functioning in normative national samples. Cognitive ability was quantified in a diverse cohort of patients with SLE and a demographically matched group of control participants. Hierarchical regression demonstrated a small increase (6%) in explained variation in cognitive functioning when presence of SLE was added to the equation derived from demographic variables. No significant interaction was found between race and disease. These results suggest that increased frequency of cognitive impairment in African Americans with SLE is due to the additive effects of psychosocial variables.
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