Chronic low back pain, chronic disability at work, chronic management issues.

Abstract

Low-back  pain  (LBP)  stands  out  as  the  leading  musculoskeletal  disorder  because  it  is  both  highly prevalent and the disability with which people live for the greatest number of years (1, 2). Reaching a peak between the ages of 30–50 years, LBP affects a population at a time of career advancement (3, 4). Back pain is the most expensive disease in terms of indirect costs due to sickness absence and work disability. Indirect (or productivity) costs contribute 93% to total costs, illustrating the importance of the consequences of the disease for work performance (5, 6). On a personal level, low self-motivation and self-confidence make it harder to initiate the return-to-work (RTW) process, especially when problems at work are related to the reason for sick leave (7, 8). At the workplace level, colleagues take over the tasks of the worker on sick leave, work piles up, or another worker is hired to take over the tasks. Timely RTW is thus of great benefit for both injured workers and their employers. [...