Association of psychosocial work characteristics with low back pain outcomes

This is a secondary analysis of a prospective cohort of 295 patients with acute low back pain presenting to 31 primary care physicians in North Carolina.

This study examines the hypothesis that dissatisfaction with job tasks and lack of social support from coworkers and supervisor are associated with poorer low back pain outcomes.

Psychosocial work characteristics are thought to be associated with the occurrence, report, and development of long-term disability from low back pain, but the studies are inconclusive. METHOD.: Three psychosocial work characteristics were separately compared to these outcomes: time to functional recovery, attainment of complete recovery, and clinically relevant change on the Modified Roland Scale.

Relative to subjects with more social support from coworkers, subjects with less social support from coworkers have 1.55 (95% CI = 1.04-2.34) times the risk of not attaining complete recovery from low back pain at 8 weeks. For all other outcomes evaluated in this study, there was not an association with the psychosocial work characteristics. Biomechanical demands were found not to modify this association.

This analysis provides evidence that social support in the workplace from coworkers but not social support from a supervisor or job task satisfaction are likely targets for intervention.