Long-term return to work after a functional restoration program for chronic low-back pain patients: a prospective study

Abstract

Low-back pain is a major health and socio economic problem. Functional restoration programs (FRP) have been developed to promote the socio-professional reintegration of patients with important work absenteeism. The aim of this study was to determine the long-term effectiveness of FRP in a group of 105 chronic low-back pain patients and to determine the predictive factors of return to work. One hundred-and-five chronic LBP patients with over 1 month of work absenteeism were included in a FRP. Pain, professional status, quality of life, functional disability, psychological impact, and fear and avoidance beliefs were evaluated at baseline, after 1 year and at the end of follow-up. Main effectiveness criterion was return to work. Fifty-five percent of the patients returned to work after mean follow-up time of 3.5 years, compared with 9% of the patients at work at baseline. Quality of life, functional disability, psychological factors, and fear and avoidance beliefs were all significantly improved. Three predictive factors were found: younger age at the onset of low-back pain, practice of sports, and shorter duration of sick leave at baseline. FRP show positive results in terms of return to work for chronic LBP patients with prolonged work absenteeism. Efforts should be made to propose such programs at an earlier stage of the disease.

Facilitadores e barreiras de retorno ao trabalho de trabalhadores acometidos por LER/DORT

“…Um menor tempo de duração foi encontrado como um facilitador do processo (POULAIN et al, 2010;LÖTTERS;HOGG--JOHNSON;BURDORF, 2005). Outro fator que parece estar relacionado com o processo de afastamento do trabalho e que se mostra como uma barreira ao retorno é encontrar-se em litígio judicial, como apontado no estudo de Takahashi et al (2010).…”

The Michel Benoist and Robert Mulholland yearly European Spine Journal Review: a survey of the “surgical and research” articles in the European Spine Journal, 2010

“…The paper by Poulain et al [37] dealing with the value of a functional restoration program in getting patients back to work suffered from the fact that there was no control group. Although the mean time off work prior to intervention was 14 ± 19 months, patients who had been off work more than 1 month were accepted onto the program.…”

Nivel De Actividad Física Y Grado De Discapacidad en Pacientes Con Dolor Lumbar Crónico

“…Sin embargo, comunidades urbanas de países en vía de desarrollo han mostrado prevalencias cercanas a las de países industrializados (4). La evolución de esta enfermedad hacia la cronicidad ocurre en un porcentaje considerable de pacientes (5) constituyendo un desafío importante para los sistemas de salud en términos de sufrimiento de los pacientes y de los altos costos de manejo agravados por la pérdida de la productividad de los individuos (6). El dolor lumbar es considerado crónico cuando persiste por más de 12 semanas (7) y la duración promedio de la enfermedad ha sido reportada oscilando entre 117,6 y 169 meses en Brasil y España respectivamente (8).…”