Alternative approaches for measuring duration of work disability after low back injury based on administrative workers' compensation data

Abstract

Background Studies of low back pain (LBP) disability remain largely incomparable because of different outcome definitions. To date, systematic comparisons of alternative outcome measures have not been made. Methods Duration of work disability was studied in a 3‐year cohort of 850 workers' compensation LBP claimants. Eleven administrative outcome measures were compared using Kaplan‐Meier estimates of the proportion of claimants still on disability benefits during 3.5 years of follow‐up. Results The estimated mean duration of work disability was 75 days for the first temporary disability (TD) episode, 108 days for cumulative time on TD, and 337 for total compensated days, which includes all types of wage replacement benefits during vocational rehabilitation, temporary and permanent disability. Conclusions Commonly used administrative measures of lost workdays—time to first return to work and time on temporary disability—substantially underestimate the duration of work disability compared to measures based on all wage replacement benefits. Am. J. Ind. Med. 35:604–618, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

Musculoskeletal disorders among construction roofers—physical function and disability

“…The prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders among these roofers was consistent with the results of prior studies reporting a high rate of continuing symptoms after an episode of acute low-back pain in the general population (20)(21)(22)(23)(24), among workers with occupational low-back pain (22,25,26), and among construction workers with musculoskeletal disorders (27). Many workers with musculoskeletal disorders continue to work with pain (28)(29)(30) and report residual effects on work or daily living (28).…”

Physical workload, ergonomic problems, and incidence of low back injury: A 7.5‐year prospective study of San Francisco transit operators

“…A list of ICD-9 codes rankordered by severity is provided in the Appendix. About 69% of study participants belonged to the ''non-specific low back pain'' group, which is roughly comparable to the 75% prevalence rate of non-specific LBI found in an unselected sample of California Low Back Pain Claimants during the years 1994-1996 [Krause et al, 1999].…”

“…The clinical categories are based on the work of Cherkin et al [1992]. The severity ranking is based on clinical judgment by the first author (Krause) and has been used in previous epidemiological studies of occupational low back pain [Dasinger et al, 1999[Dasinger et al, , 2000[Dasinger et al, , 2001Krause et al, 1999Krause et al, , 2001, showing good predictive validity in terms of a strong association with duration of work disability [Dasinger et al, 2000]. Various congenital anomalies 9 3…”

Regional socioeconomic disparities in outcomes for workers with low back pain in the United States

“…About two thirds of cases were male (69.1%), with an average age and tenure of 39.4 and 5.8 years, respectively. This is a representative cohort of LBP with respect to distributions of demographic variables of other occupational LBP studies 44, 45, 46…”