Work-Related Medical Rehabilitation in Patients with Musculoskeletal Disorders: a Propensity-Score-Analysis

Purpose Work-related medical rehabilitation is a multimodal interdisciplinary approach to reduce health-related discrepancies between work capacity and job demands in order to achieve work participation, especially for patients with severely more restricted work ability. The study tested the effects of a workrelated medical rehabilitation program, implemented in routine care, compared with common medical rehabilitation in patients with musculoskeletal disorders. Methods Data were assessed in 2014 and 2015 and were analyzed by an as-treated analysis. By means of propensity-scorematching, participants of work-related medical rehabilitation (intervention group, IG) were compared with similar participants of common medical rehabilitation (control group, CG). The primary o utcome was a positive work status one year after discharge of rehabilitation. Treatment effects were analyzed by logistic regressions and absolute risk reductions (ARR) were calculated. Results 312 patients (156 in the IG) were included in the analysis one year after rehabilitation. Propensity-score-matching achieved balanced sample characteristics. Work-related medical rehabilitation increased a positive work status by 11 points (ARR = 0.11; 95 % CI: 0.02, 0.20; p = 0.020) compared to common medical rehabilitation. Conclusion Work-related medical rehabilitation leads to better work participation outcomes after one year compared with common medical rehabilitation.