Journal of occupational medicine. : official publication of the Industrial Medical Association
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The present study explored the usefulness of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) in understanding the relationship between duration of chronic pain and psychiatric difficulties. The MMPI responses of workers' compensation patients with varying levels of low back pain chronicity were compared. One hundred ninety eight patients, divided into three groups according to length of disability, underwent social history interviews and completed the MMPI. ⋯ A series of analysis of variance designs revealed that those who were disabled for two or more years evidenced significantly more depression and psychopathology than those who were disabled for less than one year. Further statistical evaluation of 200 social history variables did not reveal significant differences between the three groups on most variables. In conjunction with previous research, the results suggested a causative link between disability and psychiatric disease.
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Comparative Study
A comparison between the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and the 'Mensana Clinic Back Pain Test' for validating the complaint of chronic back pain.
Reports on the efficacy of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) for selecting patients with valid complaints of pain have been equivocal. The Mensana Clinic Back Pain Test (MPT) was able to predict, with some degree of success, patients who had a definite organic pathologic condition. However, the MMPI measures personality traits, whereas the MPT measures the impact of pain on a patient's life. ⋯ Of the 31 patients scoring 18 points or greater on the MPT, only 26% had objective physical findings that were considered moderate or severe. Only the F scale (faking badly) of the MMPI correlated with objective physical abnormalities (r = .21340, P less than .033). However, 60% of the patients with T scores of less than 70 on the F scale had objective findings, whereas 75% of patients with T scores greater than 70 had objective physical findings.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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Mortality from burns in the United States has not improved appreciably since 1955 among men, and the rate of decline among women appears to be slowing. Although one-quarter of all serious burns result from occupational accidents, few systematic epidemiologic studies of occupational burns have been conducted. We reviewed 232 cases of occupational burns among the 1,076 civilians seen as outpatients or admitted to the Regional Burn Treatment Center of the University of California Medical Center in San Diego from 1977 to 1982. ⋯ Hispanics were overrepresented compared with their representation in the general population. Occupational associations included scalds due to hot grease among restaurant workers, tar burns among roofing workers, electrical burns among farm workers, and injuries reflecting hazards to firefighters and electricians. The number of days off work after hospitalization correlated closely with the number of days hospitalized, which in turn correlated significantly with percentage of body surface area burned.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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Contract health care plans exclude workers' compensation from among the prepaid medical benefits. Under present contract relationships, compensable injury and illness can be billed to the employer as fee-for-service care. ⋯ A statistically significant relationship between prepaid health care plan enrollment and per capita workers' compensation costs at these yards suggests the likelihood of systematic cost-shifting by overdiagnosis of compensable injury and illness. Changes in prepaid contract incentives may improve the ethical and economic health care climate for workers' compensation.
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Comparative Study
Silicosis in women. Experience from the Swedish Pneumoconiosis Register.
Among approximately 4,700 cases reported to the Swedish Pneumoconiosis Registry in the period 1931 through 1980 were 53 cases of women with silicosis, 42 of whom had worked in the ceramic industry. In a follow-up investigation, the women who had contracted silicosis in pottery-forming shops were compared with silicotic men whose occupational history was similar. ⋯ The prediagnosis duration of exposure to dust, however, was significantly shorter for the women, (20.5 +/- 8.6 yr) than for the men (28 +/- 10.1 yr) (p less than .001), and roentgenographic evidence of progression of the lesions was more pronounced in the women. No conclusive explanation of this difference was demonstrable.