title: Prognostic factors of long-term disability in a workers' compensation system.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We identified predictive factors of long-term disability in new workers' compensation claims to guide secondary prevention research and target interventions for high-risk claims.
  
  
  METHODS
  Workers with 4 or more days of work disability resulting from workplace injuries were followed for approximately 6 years in a population-based retrospective inception cohort study of 81,077 workers.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Predictors of long-term disability included delay between injury and first medical treatment, older age, construction industry, logging occupation, longer time from medical treatment to claim filing, back injury, smaller firm size, female gender, higher unemployment rate, and having dependents. We used logistic and quantile regression to investigate predictors of disability. These models produced consistent information regarding predictors.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These factors can be used to identify jobs or workers at increased risk for long-term disability that warrant prevention intervention.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98103-9058, USA. bstover@u.washington.edu
authors.forename: Bert
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Stover
authors.forename: Thomas M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Wickizer
authors.forename: Fred
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zimmerman
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fulton-Kehoe
authors.forename: Gary
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Franklin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D014861:Washington; D014942:Workers' Compensation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*