Worker's compensation and return-to-work following orthopaedic injury to extremities

Abstract

The injury patterns of workers' compensation and non-workers' compensation groups differed, but the likelihood of return-to-work at 6-month follow-up was similar. More years of education and self-efficacy were positive predictors of return-to-work.

Trajectories and predictors of return to work after traumatic limb injury – a 2-year follow-up study

“…The latter two achieved >85% RTW six months after injury. Further comparing our study with previous studies, our GBTM findings supported the predictors (eg, age, gender, educational level, injury severity, self-efficacy, and QOL) of RTW reported in previous studies (8)(9)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41). Patients found to be less likely to return to work were those who were older, less educated, and suffered from injury to one lower limb, or were seriously injured, had less self-efficacy, felt more disturbance in daily life, had worse QOL, and had poorer mental health.…”

“…The GBTM provides a novel statistical method to explore the dynamic trajectory patterns among latent subgroups from long-term repeated measurements. Previous RTW studies employed either the logistic regression or Cox's proportional hazards model to analyze work status as defined by the end-point of RTW (9,36,39). These statistical models also assume a homogenous population of subjects as regards the RTW status, which might be realistic for a single terminal observation but unrealistic for consecutive observations of the same events.…”

“…The reality of the influence of ever-changing dynamics between individual and environmental factors on the time course of an individual's RTW status would certainly require further sophisticated statistical modeling techniques to be developed. To increase the likelihood of injured workers' RTW, risk factors that could delay or prevent such an outcome need to be identified using various statistical methods such as structure equation modeling (46), multiple linear regression (7,37), logistic regression (10)(11), and Cox regression (9,36,(38)(39).…”

“…The work compensation system in Taiwan is a national program that has insured 8.8-9.4 million workers (ie, ~55-57% of the worker population) in the past 3 years (17). This system provides no-fault compensation and temporary partial income replacement if workers are unable to earn wages because of sick leave due to occupational injuries or disease (9). People can also purchase private health insurance to supplement the compensation for their injury episodes.…”

“…In addition to the domains of body function, activity, participation, and personal factors of the ICF model, the likelihood of RTW is also dependent on societies and countries with different healthcare systems, work compensation legislation, employment status, etc. So far, very few studies have reported on the RTW condition following traumatic limb injury in non-Western countries (9).…”