Heterogeneity in the associations between common mental disorders and labour outcomes - a population study from southern Sweden.

BACKGROUND: Previous research has shown that Common Mental Disorders (CMD) are unequally distributed between population subgroups, but we know less about how labour outcomes following such disorders are distributed. Our aim is to investigate how the labour outcomes following a CMD diagnosis differ over sex, age, schooling and country of birth. METHODS: We use a population sample from southern Sweden of patients diagnosed with CMD during calendar years 2009-2011, and a matched general population control group, to study labour market outcomes three years following diagnosis. Logistic regression is used to study the associations between a CMD diagnosis and outcomes in employment, sick leave, and disability pension. Interaction analysis is used to study heterogeneity in these associations. RESULTS: CMD diagnosis is associated with reduced employment and increased odds of sick leave and disability pension. Following a CMD diagnosis, men and higher educated individuals have higher odds of non-employment and sick leave compared to women and the lower educated. Foreign-born individuals have higher odds of non-employment and lower odds of sick leave, compared to individuals born in Sweden. Heterogeneity appears to be present also based on age. Younger age is associated with higher odds of non-employment and disability pension and lower odds of sick leave, following a CMD diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: Heterogeneity in labour outcomes following a CMD diagnosis sometimes contributes to and sometimes mitigates inequalities in employment, sick leave and disability pension between population subgroups. When developing new strategies to tackle mental ill-health in the population, it may therefore be motivated to consider not only inequalities in the prevalence of mental disorders but also heterogeneity in associated adverse labour outcomes.

Validation of a measure of health-related production loss: construct validity and responsiveness - a cohort study.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study is to evaluate the construct validity and responsiveness of a Swedish measure of health-related production loss as well as to investigate if there is a difference in the level of production loss within a population suffering from persistent back/neck pain and CMDs. METHODS: The sample was drawn from a study that assessed employees' health and working capacity in 74 health care units before and after intervention. The study included 692 patients who reported working the previous six months at baseline measurement, and who were also asked to answer questions related to health-related production loss. Health-related measures were general health derived from Short Form-12, health-related quality of life derived from EQ-5D, and work ability derived from the Work Ability Index (WAI). Convergent validity and external responsiveness were assessed using Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient and a linear regression model, respectively. RESULTS: The different measures of health showed a moderate-to-strong correlation with the measure of health-related production loss and fulfilled the criteria for construct validity. Changes in health and work ability led to significant changes in health-related production loss, which demonstrates external responsiveness. This result is valid for both the total population and for the two different subgroups that were evaluated. CONCLUSIONS: The present study shows that this measure of health-related production loss is a valid measure for capturing production loss due to illness, and that work ability is more strongly correlated with health-related production loss than people's general health is. The result shows an average of about 50 % reduced production due to illness, with back pain being the most costly.

Implementation of evidence-based rehabilitation for non-specific back pain and common mental health problems: a process evaluation of a nationwide initiative.

BACKGROUND: Nationwide implementation of guaranteed access to evidence-based rehabilitation was established in Sweden in 2009, through an Act of the Swedish Government. The rehabilitation guarantee's primary goal was to increase the rate of return-to-work, reduce and prevent long-term absenteeism after diagnoses related to back pain and common mental health problems. This study aims to develop knowledge about factors influencing large-scale implementation of complex and extensive interventions in healthcare settings. METHODS: Three different data sources questionnaires, interviews and documents were used in data collection and analysis. The data were analysed using iterative thematic analysis. RESULTS: The following main facilitators contributed to realization of the rehabilitation guarantee: financial incentives, establishment of project organization, recruitment, in-service training and previous experiences of working in similar projects. Barriers were: the rehabilitation guarantee's short-term project-form, clinicians' attitudes to and competence in working towards return-to-work, lack of guidelines describing treatment modalities in multimodal rehabilitation, and lack of well-defined criteria for inclusion of patients. Documents revealed that the return-to-work goal became less pronounced during the implementation process. Instead, care and health were more often described in documents used to disseminate information about the rehabilitation guarantee. Intermediate outcomes found were: patients with rehabilitation needs were given more adequate priority, increased readiness for future implementation efforts, and increased general competence in psychotherapy, and team-work, which thus became available to patient groups other than those covered by the rehabilitation guarantee. CONCLUSIONS: To facilitate implementation of established national policy goals in clinical practice, tools are needed that specifically aim at changing clinicians' attitudes and behaviours in relation to such goals. Our results underline the importance of investing both time and sufficient resources in the activities and in supporting the implementation process.

Prediction of sickness absenteeism, disability pension and sickness presenteeism among employees with back pain.

PURPOSE: The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the predictive ability of the Örebro Musculoskeletal Pain Screening Questionnaire (ÖMPSQ) concerning long-term sick leave, sickness presenteeism and disability pension during a follow-up period of 2 years. METHODS: The study group consisted of 195 employees visiting the occupational health service (OHS) due to back pain. RESULTS: Using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, the area under the curve (AUC) varied from 0.67 to 0.93, which was from less accurate for sickness presenteeism to highly accurate for the prediction of disability pension. For registered sick leave during 6 months following the baseline the AUC from the ROC analyses was moderately accurate (0.81) and a cut off score of 90 rendered a high sensitivity of 0.89 but a low specificity of 0.46 whereas a cut off score of 105 improves the specificity substantially but at the cost of some sensitivity. The predictive ability appears to decrease with time. Several workplace factors beyond those included in the ÖMPSQ were considered but only social support at the workplace was significantly related to future long-term sick leave besides the total score of the ÖMPSQ. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study extend and confirm the findings of earlier research on the ÖMPSQ. Assessment of psychosocial risk factors among employees seeking help for back pain at the OHS could be helpful in the prevention of work disabling problems.

The effects of multimodal rehabilitation on pain-related sickness absence - an observational study.

PURPOSE: The aim of the current study was to examine the effects on sickness absence of multimodal rehabilitation delivered within the framework of a national implementation of evidence based rehabilitation, the rehabilitation guarantee for nonspecific musculoskeletal pain. METHOD: This was an observational matched controlled study of all persons receiving multimodal rehabilitation from the last quarter of 2009 until the end of 2010. The matching was based on age, sex, sickness absence the quarter before intervention start and pain-related diagnosis. The participants were followed by register data for 6 or 12 months. The matched controls received rehabilitation in accordance with treatment-as-usual. RESULTS: Of the participants, 54% (N = 3636) were on registered sickness absence at baseline and the quarter before rehabilitation. The average difference in number of days of sickness absence between the participants who received multimodal rehabilitation and the matched controls was to the advantage of the matched controls, 14.7 days (CI 11.7; 17.7, p ≤ 0.001) at 6-month follow-up and 9.5 days (CI 6.7; 12.3, p ≤ 0.001) at 12-month follow-up. A significant difference in newly granted disability pensions was found in favor of the intervention. CONCLUSIONS: When implemented nationwide, multimodal rehabilitation appears not to reduce sickness absence compared to treatment-as-usual. Implications for Rehabilitation A nationwide implementation of multimodal rehabilitation was not effective in reducing sickness absence compared to treatment-as-usual for persons with nonspecific musculoskeletal pain. Multimodal rehabilitation was effective in reducing the risk of future disability pension for persons with nonspecific musculoskeletal pain compared to treatment-as-usual. To be effective in reducing sick leave multimodal rehabilitation must be started within 60 days of sick leave. The evidence for positive effect of multimodal rehabilitation is mainly for sick listed patients. Prevention of sick leave for persons not being on sick leave should not be extrapolated from evidence for multimodal rehabilitation.

Visuospatial and verbal memory in chronic pain patients: an explorative study.

Cognitive bias, such as selective memory for pain-related information, is frequently observed in chronic pain patients and is assessed mostly using verbal material. Beside word lists, the current study used photographs of people presenting pain behaviors to assess memory bias in chronic pain patients. Chronic pain patients were hypothesized to show better recall of pain-related words and pictures as compared to pain-free controls. Twenty-eight female chronic neck patients and 28 pain-free female controls completed two computerized pictorial memory games and two word recall tasks. Patients and controls performed equally well in the neutral pictorial memory game. In the pain-related game, patients performed significantly worse than controls. No significant differences were found in the word recall task. The result is discussed in terms of cognitive avoidance.

Returning to work - a long-term process reaching beyond the time frames of multimodal non-specific back pain rehabilitation.

PURPOSE: To explore and describe health professionals' experience of working with return to work (RTW) in multimodal rehabilitation for people with non-specific back pain. METHOD: An interview study using qualitative content analysis. Fifteen participants were interviewed, all were working with multimodal rehabilitation for people with non-specific back pain in eight different rehabilitation units. RESULTS: The participants experienced RTW as a long-term process reaching beyond the time frames of the multimodal rehabilitation (MMR). Their attitudes and, their patients' condition, impacted on their work which focused on psychological and physical well-being as well as participation in everyday life. They often created an action plan for the RTW process, however the responsibility for its realisation was transferred to other actors. The participants described limited interventions in connection with patients' workplaces. CONCLUSIONS: Recommended support in the RTW process in MMR comprises the provision of continuous supervision of vocational issues for the health care professionals, the development of guidelines and a checklist for how to work in close collaboration with patients' workplaces and employers, the provision of long-term follow-up in relation to the patients' work, and the development of proper interventions in order to promote transitions between all the different actors involved. IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION: Rehabilitation programs targeting return to work (RTW) for people with non-specific back pain needs to include features concretely focusing on vocational issues. Health and RTW is often seen as a linear process in which health comes before RTW. Rehabilitation programs could be tailored to better address the reciprocal relationship between health and work, in which they are interconnected and affect each other. The RTW process is reaching beyond the time frames of the multimodal rehabilitation but further support from the patients are asked for. The rehabilitation programs needs to be designed to provide long-term follow-up in relation to the patients' work.

Effectiveness of different interventions using a psychosocial subgroup assignment in chronic neck and back pain patients: a 10-year follow-up.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential interaction between treatment content and subgroups according to the Swedish version of the Multidimensional Pain Inventory (MPI-S) on the effect on sickness absence during a 10-year follow-up in a population with chronic neck pain (NP) and/or low back pain (LBP). METHODS: This study is based on a randomized controlled multicentre trial with a 10-year follow-up using the MPI-S and included 214 participants. The interventions consisted of Behavioural-oriented Physiotherapy (PT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Behavioural Medicine Rehabilitation (BM), and a "treatment-as-usual" control group (CG). RESULTS: There appears to be a difference in the development of sickness absence after rehabilitation for the adaptive coper (AC) group even though the result did not reach statistical significance. AC seems to respond most favourably to the multidisciplinary programme compared to the CG. The development of sickness absence after intervention among interpersonally distressed (ID) and dysfunctional (DYS) patients were similar across all three treatment alternatives as well as CG. CONCLUSION: In terms of long-term follow-up of sickness absence, the multidisciplinary programme appears to be most beneficial for DYS and AC patients. In contrast, the CBT and PT interventions failed to benefit any patient group.

Patterns of sickness absence a decade after pain-related multidisciplinary rehabilitation.

Multidisciplinary programmes using a vocational approach can enhance work return in chronic pain patients, but little is known about the long-term effects of rehabilitation. The current study examined the patterns of sickness absence 10 years after participation in 3 treatment groups (physiotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, and vocational multidisciplinary rehabilitation) in comparison to a control group receiving treatment-as-usual. Cost-effectiveness was also assessed. Two hundred fourteen patients participated in a randomized controlled trial and were followed-up via register data 10 years after the interventions. On average, persons in multidisciplinary rehabilitation had 42.98 fewer days on sickness absence per year compared to those treated-as-usual (95% confidence interval -82.45 to -3.52, P=0.03). The corresponding reduction of sickness absence after physiotherapy and cognitive behavioural therapy was not significantly different from the control group. The effect of rehabilitation seems to be more pronounced for disability pension than for sick leave. The economic analyses showed substantial cost savings for individuals in the multidisciplinary group compared to the control group.

Appraisal and coping processes among chronic low back pain patients.

OBJECTIVES: Appraisals and coping play important roles in musculoskeletal disorders, but how these aspects develop over time remains unknown. The aim of the current study was to examine the development of pain-related appraisals, coping and well behaviours among chronic low back pain (CLBP) patients. METHODS: Twenty-two outpatients (15 women, 7 men) of working age were interviewed about past and present experiences of CLBP. The interviews were analysed using Grounded theory. RESULTS: The majority of the participants used disregarding processes in response to CLBP. The disregarding process developed from a psychological defence into a conscious coping strategy, the transition mediated by a crisis. This defence seemed to protect the participants' self-concept and reduce emotional discomfort, although it did not promote rehabilitation. The disregarding strategy was usually employed in later phases of the disorder and was consistent with active attempts at changing pain-related behaviours. Study limitation: Most of the participants had experienced CLBP for several years, thus the risk of memory bias cannot be ruled out. Furthermore, the sample was composed of relatively healthy subjects, thus the findings may not apply to chronic low back patients in general. CONCLUSION: Acceptance of CLBP favoured rehabilitation and helped participants change pain-related behaviours.