Working with Musculoskeletal Pain

Abstract

• Pain has a significant impact on work in terms of presenteeism, sickness absence, and long-term incapacity for work • A bio-psychosocial approach is required in understanding pain-related disability and incapacity for work • Long-term absence from work is associated with a number of negative outcomes including; poverty, social exclusion and poorer physical and psychosocial well-being • Return to work can improve recovery for people with musculoskeletal complaints and pain • Interventions to reduce the impact of pain on work can operate at clinical, worker, workplace, and wider systems levels • A broader whole systems approach to pain management needs to be adopted, with a greater focus on work retention as well as rehabilitation