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Predictive factors for the outcome of a multidisciplinary pain rehabilitation programme on sick-leave and life satisfaction in patients with whiplash trauma and other myofascial pain: a follow-up study

Eva Heikkilä

Martin Eisemann

Department of Psychiatry, Unit of Medical Psychology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

Objective: To evaluate the effects of a multidisciplinary rehabilitation programme on sick-leave, coping resources and life satisfaction in whiplash patients and other pain patients.

Subjects: Forty patients suffering from symptoms after whiplash trauma and 33 patients with musculoskeletal pain in the neck or back were recruited for this study. Ninety-seven consecutive patients admitted to the Department of Neurosurgery with cervical pain, cervical disc herniation or symptomatic spondylosis served as a control group.

Results: Decreased coping resources and poorer life satisfaction were observed for whiplash subjects at the beginning of the rehabilitation programme compared to the control group from the Department of Neurosurgery. After the rehabilitation period 49% of the patients had improved their coping resources totalling to 63% after 2 years. At that follow-up 46% of patients had increased their life satisfaction. Furthermore, the group with whiplash injury showed a significant increase in sick absenteeism whereas the group without whiplash trauma had decreased their sick-leave. Eighty-eight per cent of the subjects could be correctly classified according to their vocational outcome by means of discriminant function. The elapse of time since working, low life satisfaction, lack of increase in coping resources during the rehabilitation programme, ethnic origin of the patient and living in the countryside predicted poor vocational outcome.

Conclusion: Our results suggest variables from the social environment and coping resources as useful predictors for treatment outcome.

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