A comparison of two multidisciplinary inpatient rehabilitation programmes for fibromyalgia: a register linkage study on work disability.

Background: Patients with fibromyalgia have a high risk of temporary and permanent work disability. Little is known about the effects of fibromyalgia rehabilitation on work disability.

Objective: To determine whether a specific fibromyalgia rehabilitation programme is superior to a non-specific musculoskeletal rehabilitation of patients with fibromyalgia in terms of work disability.

Methods: A prospective observational study of 215 local government employees with a 6-year post-intervention follow-up to monitor the occurrence of long sick-leave and disability pensions among the participants of two different fibromyalgia rehabilitation programmes.

Results: Specific fibromyalgia rehabilitation was not superior to a non-specific musculoskeletal rehabilitation, with the corresponding hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) after adjustments being 1.02 (0.75-1.40) for long sick-leave, 1.18 (0.75-1.87) for very long sick-leave, and 1.07 (0.63-1.83) for disability pension.

Conclusion: The results suggest that in reducing work disability among patients with fibromyalgia a specific multidisciplinary fibromyalgia rehabilitation programme practised in Finland provides no benefit compared with non-specific multidisciplinary musculoskeletal rehabilitation. Further research is needed to develop an optimal programme (or several different programmes) to control the burden of work disability related to fibromyalgia.