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Predicting Work Status for Patients in an Occupational Medicine Setting Who Report Back Pain-Reply
Marie A. Krousel-Wood, MD, MSPH;
Todd W. McCune, MD, MPH;
Richard N. Re, MD;
Ahmed Abdoh, PhD
Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation New Orleans, La
Arch Fam Med. 1994;3(9):753.
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In reply
Although we used a number of health/functional status scales to determine which, if any, might be associated with fitness to work, the final model contained only one multi-item scale— the physical function scale. This scale consists of 10 brief questions similar in content to activities of daily living questions. Although the scoring for the physical function scale involves the transformation of data, scanners that perform automatic scoring in seconds are available commercially. The remainder of the model consisted of three additional items: employment status, smoking status, and gender. The final model items fit on one page with standard type and take approximately 5 minutes to complete. This renders the model a potentially useful tool in daily practice settings.
The generalizability of the study results to all patients with complaints of low back pain was addressed in the article; the study group was homogeneous with respect to payer class, thus, the
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
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