Disability and rehabilitation
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Material handling performance of patients with chronic low back pain during functional capacity evaluation: a comparison between three countries.
Functional Capacity Evaluations (FCEs) are batteries of tests designed to measure patients' ability to perform work-related activities. Although FCEs are used worldwide, it is unknown how patients' performances compare between countries or settings. This study was performed to explore similarities and differences in FCE performance of patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP) between three international settings that utilize the same FCE protocol. ⋯ Considerable differences were observed between settings in maximum weight handled on the various FCE items. Future FCE research should examine the effects of a number of potentially influential factors, including variability in evaluator judgements across settings, the evaluator-patient interaction and patients' expectations of the influence of FCE results on disability compensation.