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  • Title: Capturing cases in workers' compensation databases: the example of neck pain.
    Author: Van Eerd D, Côté P, Beaton D, Hogg-Johnson S, Vidmar M, Kristman V.
    Journal: Am J Ind Med; 2006 Jul; 49(7):557-68. PubMed ID: 16691612.
    Abstract:
    BACKGROUND: There is a need to more accurately enumerate workers with musculoskeletal injuries who make lost-time claims to workers compensation boards. The objective of this study is to develop an approach to more accurately enumerate these workers. METHODS: Lost-time claims to the Ontario Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (WSIB) were reviewed. Using neck pain as an example, nature of injury and part of body codes were identified to classify cases. Claims of a random sample of 434 claimants were reviewed. The proportion of claimants classified as having neck pain was computed. RESULTS: The proportion of claimants classified with soft-tissue injuries to the neck varied from 0.88 for codes including "neck/cervical region," 0.69 for "back region" to 0.05 for those coded as "shoulder/upper arm." CONCLUSIONS: Restricting the enumeration of injuries to specific part of body codes can lead to a gross underestimation of the magnitude of soft-tissue disorders in epidemiological studies using workers' compensation data. The proposed approach leads to more accurate enumeration.
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