[What barriers hinder the reporting of work related sciatic pain by GPs and rheumatologists?]

Despite an epidemic of muscular-skeletal disorders (MSD), they are underreported. We carried out a telephone survey of 391 general practitioners (GPs) and 96 rheumatologists in south-eastern France to study the barriers to physicians' reporting of occupational diseases (OD). We presented them with a case-study of a patient with work-related sciatica. 72% of GPs and 84% of rheumatologists did not recommend to report this OD, for the following reasons, respectively: hesitation due to the possible role of extraprofessional activities as the root cause (77%, 74%), preferably should be reported as an occupational accident (67%, 42%), acknowledgement that the reporting of this is the role of occupational physicians (60% et 60%) and fear of risk of loosing one's job (47%, 36%). Results of multiple regression analyses suggest that the lack of awareness of reporting procedures and the presumption of causality principle may be main barriers to reporting.