influence of perception of function on work status in individuals who sustain a work-related upper extremity musculoskeletal injury
By: by Sharon Laura Switzer-McIntyre.
Published: 2004
Language: eng
Number of pages: 198
Description: The purpose of this thesis is to describe demographic, vocational, functional, medical, psychosocial and workplace characteristics of Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) claimants, who sustain an upper extremity injury, in order to identify patterns and determine if a worker's perceived level of function affects their work status. This study used a cross-sectional design of one-hundred and six (n = 106) consecutive individuals who met the inclusion criteria. Workers were interviewed by telephone at approximately six-weeks post-accident. The primary measures included; a clinical question regarding self perception of function, the Disability Arm Shoulder and Hand Questionnaire (DASH), select questions from the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ and open-ended questions regarding the subjects' perception of their ability to work. A subset of the study sample (n = 32) participated in a six-month follow-up interview repeating the primary measures. As hypothesized, an individual's perception of their function is related to their work status (p &lt; 0.0001), as is their perception of disability (p &lt; 0.0001). Two parallel multiple regression models were employed to determine the influence of an individual's perception of function and disability on work status. Both are strongly associated with work status at baseline, however for this sample of workers, perceived function (OR 2.1, 95% CI 1.4 3.2) appears to have a slightly stronger relationship than the DASH (OR 0.56, 95% CI 0.3 1.04 ). Those individuals who perceived their level of function to be close to pre-accident level were much more likely to be at work. These findings were consistent over the six-month timeframe for the follow-up cohort. While the factors that influence work status are multidimensional; perception of function appears to be one of the factors to consider in the overall equation.
Notes: Adviser:  D. Linn Holness.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2004.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-10, Section: B, page: 5086.