Predictive Validity of a Screening Instrument for the Risk of Non-Return to Work in Patients With Internal Diseases

Area of Science:

• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Occupational Health
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Assessing work-related outcomes is crucial for patients undergoing medical rehabilitation.
• Predictive tools are needed to identify individuals at risk of return-to-work (RTW) difficulties.
• The SIMBO score's validity for internal diseases requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the predictive accuracy of the SIMBO score for return-to-work in patients with internal diseases.
• To determine the effectiveness of the SIMBO score in a real-world rehabilitation setting.
• To validate the established cutoff score of 27 for risk stratification.

Main Methods:

• Prospective, multicenter study involving 1366 patients (aged 18-65) with internal diseases.
• Patients received multimodal rehabilitation programs.
• Primary outcome: critical RTW event within a 3-month follow-up period. ROC analyses were used to assess predictive validity.

Main Results:

• The SIMBO score demonstrated strong predictive validity across various internal disease groups (neoplasms, endocrine, circulatory, respiratory, digestive).
• Area under the curve values ranged from .849 to .903, indicating good discriminative ability.
• Sensitivity and specificity were high, ranging from 65.6%–92.9% and 80.4%–89.9%, respectively.

Conclusions:

• The SIMBO score is a valid tool for predicting short-term return-to-work problems in patients with internal diseases after rehabilitation.
• The cutoff score of 27 points is confirmed as an appropriate threshold for identifying patients at risk.
• Findings support the use of SIMBO in clinical practice for targeted RTW interventions.