Affiliations: The Guangzhou Work Injury Rehabilitation Hospital,
Wenquan Town, Conghua, Guangzhou, China
Note: [] Address for correspondence: Yanwen Xu, M.Phil, The Guangdong
Provincial Work Injury Rehabilitation Centre, Wenquan Eastern Road 105, Wenquan
Town, Conghua, Guangzhou, China. Tel.: +86 20 87830238; Fax: +86 20 87830338;
E-mail: xudeng2@163.com
Abstract: Objectives: This paper aims to explore the effects of demographic
and social factors for those suffering from work-related injuries with
musculoskeletal disorders and their employment status after discharge within
three months. Method: The employment status and compensation-related information
was caught by adopting telephone follow up with the designated data collection
questionnaire; other demographic characteristic and social factors were
obtained by reviewing injured workers' original admission records. Results: In total sixty-eight injured workers were involved with a
67.6% return to work rate. Time of hospitalization (t=2.34, p=0.02) and area of
registered residence (x^{2}=8.37, p=0.02) significant
differences were found between the return to work group and non-return to work
group. The only predictor found by using Logistic Regression analysis was the
length of hospitalization (OR=0.978, 95%CI: 0.959–0.998). Conclusions: The shorter the length of hospitalization during the
rehabilitation process, the greater the rate of return to work for those
workers suffering from work-related injuries with musculoskeletal
disorders.
Keywords: Factors, return to work, injured worker, musculoskeletal disorders
