Prognostic determinants of return to work of people with low back pain after previous rehabilitation spa

Introduction: An important objective the pension prevention program of the Social Insurance Institution is to improve the health of people treated to the extent as to permit back to work. The adoption of certain criteria of prognostic can be a tool to help in the verification of indications for referring patients for the pension prevention. Objective: The aim of the study was to identify determinants of the declaration of return to work of patients with low back pain send to the spa treatment under the pension prevention program of the Social Insurance Institution. Material and methods: The study group comprised 314 patients with low back pain, who were sent to the Ladek-Dlugopole SA spa under the pension prevention program. After the treatment, patients completed an anonymous questionnaire and the doctor qualified them to one of five treatment subgroup. Results: Most of examined were assigned to subgroup I. Assessing the effects of spa treatment half of the respondents reported a significant improvement, 37.82% slight improvement, relief of symptoms, 6.73% and 5.45% no improvement. At the end of the stay in spa 57,05% of the respondents declared their intention to return to previous job. Conclusions: Identification of treatment efficacy in each subgroups creates some opportunities forecasting the results of prevention of disability for patients with low back pain. Declaration of returning to work after spa treatment was mainly conditioned by the improvement of health. People who might have regression of symptoms or substantial improvement of health declared a return to the previous job.