The correlation between working capacity, activity limitations and social participation restrictions among people affected by leprosy

The presence of sensorimotor impairments may lead to activity limitation, social restriction, and to reducing the work capacity of the person infected by leprosy. There is a lack of instruments that can help to identify the work capacity of leprosy patients. The aim of this study was to identify the work capacity and its correlation with limitations of daily activities and social participation. The sample consisted of both male and female leprosy participants who had completed multidrug therapy (MDT). We included sociodemographic and clinical data. Working capacity was measured using physical and mental work demands and dimensions of the Work Ability Index (WAI). Thirty patients - 17 (56.7%) male and 13 (43.4%) female - with a mean age of 44.2 years participated in the study. With respect to the demands of work, 14 (46.7) considered their physical work capacity to be very low, 11 (36.7) evaluated their mental capacity for the demands of work as good, and 13 (43.3%) could not estimate their ability to return to work in a period of 2 years. The SALSA Scale (r = -0.68) and the Participation Scale (r = -0.57) presented a moderate negative correlation with Dimension 1 of the working capacity index. Dimension 2 of WAI was strongly correlated with the SALSA Scale (r = 0.78) and moderately correlated with the Participation Scale (r = 0.61). The SALSA Scale presented a stronger correlation with the WAI domains. The results of this study suggest that the SALSA Scale could be used as an indirect measure to assess working capacity.