The effect of demographic and social factors on return to work of injured workers with musculoskeletal disorders

Abstract

Objectives: This paper aims to explore the effects of demographic and social factors for those suffering from work-related injuries with musculoskeletal disorders and their employment status after discharge within three months.

Method: The employment status and compensation-related information was caught by adopting telephone follow up with the designated data collection questionnaire; other demographic characteristic and social factors were obtained by reviewing injured workers' original admission records.

Results: In total sixty-eight injured workers were involved with a 67.6% return to work rate. Time of hospitalization (t=2.34, p=0.02) and area of registered residence (x $^{2}$ =8.37, p=0.02) significant differences were found between the return to work group and non-return to work group. The only predictor found by using Logistic Regression analysis was the length of hospitalization (OR=0.978, 95%CI: 0.959–0.998).

Conclusions: The shorter the length of hospitalization during the rehabilitation process, the greater the rate of return to work for those workers suffering from work-related injuries with musculoskeletal disorders.