PSYCHOSOCIAL PREDICTORS OF THE DURATION OF MEDICAL BENEFITS

Researchers have explored a broad range of factors in efforts to predict health-related absence from work—a condition costly to employers, workers, and society. In this issue, Lötters and colleagues¹ approach the problem from a biopsychosocial perspective, using a 1-year follow-up study to investigate the relationship of duration of sick leave to depressive symptoms, fear-avoidance and self-efficacy among 187 workers compensated for musculoskeletal disorders. The authors report that in regression analyses adjusting for other individual and occupational factors, depressive symptoms and poor health were the major predictors of …