ISSLS prize winner: early predictors of chronic work disability: a prospective, population-based study of workers with back injuries.

Study Design: Prospective population-based cohort study.

Objective: To identify early predictors of chronic work disability after work-related back injury.

Summary Of Background Data: Identification of early predictors of prolonged disability after back injury could increase understanding concerning the development of chronic, disabling pain, and aid in secondary prevention.

Development of a brief questionnaire to predict long-term disability.

Objective: To develop a brief worker-completed questionnaire for use soon after a work-related back injury to assess risk of long-term work disability.

Methods: In this prospective cohort study, 1885 workers provided information about pain, function, psychosocial, and work characteristics about 3 weeks after filing claims for new back injuries. Classification and regression tree analysis was used to identify the best predictive model of work disability status 1 year after claim submission.

Early predictors of chronic work disability associated with carpal tunnel syndrome: a longitudinal workers' compensation cohort study.

Background: The study objectives were to identify early predictors of chronic work disability associated with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) and to test the hypothesis that variables from each of several domains (sociodemographic, clinical, work-related, and psychosocial) would add unique predictive information.

Methods: Washington State workers were interviewed 18 days (median) after submitting a new workers' compensation claim for CTS. Baseline predictors of chronic work disability (> or =180 days of work disability compensation in the year after claim submission) were examined for workers who had at least 1 day of disability compensation (N = 899).

Factors associated with early opioid prescription among workers with low back injuries.

Unlabelled: Prescription of opioids for nonmalignant musculoskeletal pain has increased substantially in recent years, but there is little information on the incidence of, or factors associated with, such prescription for work-related back pain. In a prospective cohort study (N = 1,067), we examined associations between worker sociodemographic and other characteristics and opioid prescription within six weeks of the first medical visit for workers' compensation claims for work loss due to back injury. We examined administrative, pharmacy, and worker-reported data.

Worker recovery expectations and fear-avoidance predict work disability in a population-based workers' compensation back pain sample.

Study Design: Prospective, population-based cohort study.

Objectives: To examine whether worker demographic, pain, disability, and psychosocial variables, assessed soon after work-related back pain disability onset, predict 6-month work disability.

Summary Of Background Data: Greater age, pain, and physical disability, and certain psychosocial characteristics may be risk factors for prolonged back pain-related work disability, although many studies have been small, findings have been inconsistent, and some psychosocial variables have not been examined prospectively.

The association between pain and disability.

A clearer understanding of how pain intensity relates to disability could have important implications for pain treatment goals and definitions of treatment success. The objectives of this study were to determine the optimal pain intensity rating (0-10 scale) cutpoints for discriminating disability levels among individuals with work-related carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) and low back (LB) injuries, whether these cutpoints differed for these conditions and for different disability measures, and whether the relationship between pain intensity and disability was linear in each injury group. Approximately 3 weeks after filing work injury claims, 2183 workers (1059 CTS; 1124 LB) who still had pain completed pain and disability measures.

Improving quality through identifying inappropriate care: the use of guideline-based utilization review protocols in the Washington State Workers' Compensation System.

Utilization review (UR) is widely instituted to ensure that medical treatment is clinically necessary and appropriate. UR programs have been criticized for their failure to promote quality and for relying on proprietary review criteria that are rarely subject to external, independent evaluation or validation. In fashioning its UR program for workers' compensation, the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries sought to address these shortcomings.