Rates and Correlates of Unemployment Across Four Common Chronic Pain Diagnostic Categories

Overview

Journal J Occup Rehabil

Publisher Springer

Specialties Occupational Medicine
Rehabilitation Medicine

Date 2015 Feb 20

PMID 25693781

Citations 11

Authors

Hili Giladi

Whitney Scott

Yoram Shir

Michael J L Sullivan

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Purpose: To examine rates and correlates of unemployment across distinct common chronic pain diagnoses.

Methods: Data were analyzed from a sample of 2,382 patients with chronic pain in the Quebec Pain Registry (QPR). Patients were grouped into the following diagnostic categories based on their primary pain diagnosis recorded in the QPR: musculoskeletal pain; myofascial pain; neuropathic pain, and visceral pain. Analyses were performed to examine the associations between pain diagnosis, patient demographics, pain intensity, depressive symptoms, and unemployment status.

Results: Pain diagnosis, age, marital status, education, pain intensity, and depressive symptoms were each significant unique predictors of unemployment status in a hierarchical logistic regression analysis; the addition of depressive symptoms in this model contributed to the greatest increment of model fit.

Conclusions: Depressive symptoms are associated with unemployment across a number of common chronic pain conditions, even when controlling for other factors that are associated with unemployment in these patients. Depressive symptoms, as a modifiable factor, may thus be an important target of intervention for unemployed patients with chronic pain.

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