Do work ability and well-being matter for return to work? Cut-off points for the Work Ability Index and Life Satisfaction Questionnaire among women with long-term musculoskeletal pain

Abstract Background To determine whether work ability and well-being predict return to work (RTW) among women with long-term neck/shoulder and/or back pain at 1-year follow-up, and to assess the ability of the Work Ability Index (WAI) and Life Satisfaction Questionnaire (LiSat-11) to discriminate between those who did RTW and those who did not RTW (NRTW). Methods A survey was sent to 600 women receiving sick leave (SL) benefits from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency. In total, 208 women responded at baseline, and 141 at a 1-year follow-up. To identify whether work ability and well-being predicted RTW, multiple logistic regression analyses were performed with and without adjustment for type of work and pain intensity. To assess the discriminative ability of the WAI and LiSat-11 for women who did RTW and those who did NRTW, receiver operating characteristic curves were fitted. Results Work ability predicted RTW, and the results remained significant after adjusting for type of work and pain intensity (OR 1.12, 95% CI: 1.04–1.22). Well-being was not significant. The WAI at baseline adequately discriminated between RTW and NRTW after one year (AUC 0.78, 95% CI: 0.70–0.86), but the LiSat-11 did not. Conclusions Our results indicate that work ability is an important factor for RTW among women on SL for long-term neck/shoulder and/or back pain. The findings also indicate that the WAI, but not the LiSat-11, is able to discriminate between RTW and NRTW in the population under study. The WAI may be used to identify women at risk of NRTW.