Recovery from nonspecific neck pain in office workers

BACKGROUND: Neck pain has an episodic course with varying time for recovery and identification of individuals likely to recover is important. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was twofold: 1a) to explore the duration of recovery from nonspecific neck pain, and 1b) to investigate the relation between recovery duration and age, and 2) to evaluate whether the NHBOW can predict duration of recovery from non-specific neck pain. METHODS: One hundred and three from 342 office workers reported non-specific neck pain, with information collected on pain intensity and disability every month for 12 months. The time to recovery was measured from the onset of neck pain to full recovery. The 103 office workers were divided into two groups using the NHBOW score. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were used to describe the median time to recovery. The survival curves of the two NHBOW groups were compared using Cox regression analysis. RESULTS: The median time to recovery from neck pain was 2 months. The duration of recovery was not significantly related with age of participants. There was no significant difference in time to recovery from neck pain between the NHBOW low-score group and the high-score group. CONCLUSION: This study showed that the NHBOW was unable to predict duration of recovery from nonspecific neck pain in office workers.