A longitudinal, prospective study of industrial back injury reporting

The authors prospectively evaluated 3020 volunteers of the Boeing-Everett plant to assess risk factors that predispose workers to file industrial back injury claims. During four years of follow-up observation, more than 279 subjects reported acute back problems. The effect of the only predictive physical variable was explainable by a history of medical treatment. The most predictive individual factors were (1) job task dissatisfaction and (2) distress as reported on Scale 3 of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). This data perhaps explains why the focus on purely physical and injury-related factors has met with little success in dealing with what has become the most expensive orthopedic problem. Clinically, nonphysical factors that significantly impact the reporting of back injuries may also affect patients' responses to medical treatment.