Authors (including presenting author) :
Lam CCS(1), Cheung CTT(1), Yau DLY(1), Louie FTM(1)
Affiliation :
(1)Occupational Therapy Department, Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital, Hong Kong
Introduction :
Patients often encounter return-to-work problem after work-related upper limb injury. There is no golden standard to predict their working status (WS) after injury. Other than patient’s work capacity assessed by occupational therapist, psychosocial factor such as self-perceived disability (SPD) level may also relate to their return-to-work status.
Objectives :
To investigate the relationship between post-injury duration, SPD, physical demand of work (PDW) and WS.
Methodology :
Patients referred to Occupational Therapy Department in Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital for work rehabilitation were recruited between April 2018 and October 2018. Subject inclusion comprised with a work-related upper limb injury. Post-injury duration was calculated by summing the days from injury to the date of work initial intake. SPD level were reflected by the patient administered disability/symptom section of the shortened disabilities of the arm, shoulder and hand questionnaire (Quick DASH). It records patient’s ability in daily activities and conducted during initial intake. There are 5 levels of PDW: sedentary, light, medium, heavy and very heavy according to the United States Department of Labor Physical Demand Characteristics of Work Chart. WS was asked via phone 3 months after discharge from department. Subject able to resume or unable to resume previous job were the binary outcome. Data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel 2007 software. Logistic regression was performed. An alpha level of 0.05 was used to determine statistical significance.
Result & Outcome :
In total, 50 subjects’ data were analyzed. 22 subjects had resumed previous job and 28 subjects could not resume previous job. Means of Quick DASH score and post-injury duration were 30.3/100 and 292 days respectively. Median of PDW was medium level. For the logistic regression model, SPD (Beta = 0.052, P < 0.05) was associated with WS but PDW (Beta = 1.317, P = 0.07) and post-injury duration (Beta = 0.013, P = 0.05) were not. SPD was found to have a positive correlation with WS. Patients with lower Quick DASH score had greater chance to resume previous work. Their SPD level at the beginning of work rehabilitation should be alerted and important for work plan formulation by occupational therapists. Initial work assessment should holistically include objective physical ability measurement result and subjective psychosocial factor. Further study in larger scale is needed to investigate the indication of Quick DASH score on detailed working status.
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