Pain and work

Pain, including neck pain and low-back pain, is a leading cause of work absenteeism in Canada and other industrialized countries. Among injured workers, pain can interact with other factors to prolong time off work. IWH research on this topic ranges from early studies on the treatment of pain and prognostic factors for recovery, to more recent interest in pain as a factor in the return-to-work outcomes and other post-injury experiences of injured workers.

Featured

IWH Speaker Series

Persistent pain: its role in work absence, health, and employment after a disabling work-related injury

Published: November 15, 2022

Journal article

Systematic review of prognostic factors for return to work in workers with sub acute and chronic low back pain

Published: Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, September 2017

Journal article

Early prescription opioid use for musculoskeletal disorders and work outcomes: a systematic review of the literature

Published: Clinical Journal of Pain, July 2017

Systematic Review

Effective workplace-based return-to-work interventions: a systematic review update

This report synthesizes the evidence from a systematic review on the effectiveness of workplace-based return-to-work interventions and updates the Institute's 2004 systematic review on the same subject. This update brings in evidence published since 2004, and expands upon the original systematic review by including work absences due not only to musculoskeletal disorders, but also to mental health and pain-related conditions.

Published: February 2017

A trainer helps client do core exercises on mat

At Work article

New review finds motor control exercise reduces low-back pain, disability among sufferers

Published: February 2016

IWH Speaker Series

Returning to work following low-back pain: Do prognostic factors differ for acute, subacute and chronic pain?

How long does it take for someone with low-back pain to recover enough to return to work? That's a question often asked by the worker, the employer, and the workers' compensation agency alike. In this plenary, Dr. Ivan Steenstra shares prognostic factors for subacute and chronic low-back pain and compares them with prognostic factors for acute pain. He also discusses how stakeholders use prognostic information, and how their understanding of prognostic factors compares to his own findings.

Published: November 2014

Top down view of man walking up spiral staircase

Sharing Best Evidence

Factors affecting RTW following acute low-back pain

This systematic review set out to find what factors affect the length of time it takes before returning to work. The aim was to identify which workers with acute low-back pain are at high risk of long-term absences and, therefore, in need of extra attention to help them recover and return to work more quickly.

Published: May 2012

Systematic Review

Systematic review of prognostic factors for workers' time away from work due to acute low-back pain: an update

This report explores the factors that affect how long it will take workers to return to work following an absence due to acute low-back pain, based upon the results of a systematic review update conducted by the Institute for Work & Health.

Published: August 2011

Project

Understanding the use and impact of early opioid prescriptions for work-related low-back pain

Do opioids prescribed in the early weeks of a new workers’ compensation lost-time claim for low-back pain result in prolonged work disability? This was one of the questions asked by an IWH research team looking at the opioid prescription patterns with respect to low-back pain.

Status: Completed 2017

Project

Prognostic factors for time away from work among workers with chronic low-back pain: a systematic review update

Status: Completed 2017

Research Highlights

Five non-surgical neck pain treatments work equally well

A study of five non-surgical treatments for neck pain — nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), Cox-2 inhibiting NSAIDs, exercise, mobilization, and manipulation — found no one treatment option for neck pain was found to be clearly superior when both benefits and harms were considered.

Published: November 2008