Effects of an early multidisciplinary intervention on sickness absence in patients with persistent low back pain—a randomized controlled trial

Table 1 Patient characteristic at baseline

Variables	Intervention group (N = 407)				Usual care group (N = 363)
	N	%	Mean	SD	N	%	Mean	SD	p-value
Sex (no of males)	213	52.33			192	52.89			0.69
Age			39.29	9.86			39.06	10.70	0.65
BMI			25.70	4.83			25.65	4.36	0.92
Current smoker	185	46.02			166	45.98			0.96
Marital status									0.59
- Married/living with partner	258	64.02			224	62.22
- Living alone /divorced/widowed	129	32.01			116	32.22
- Other	16	3.97			20	5.56
Educational level									0.67
- None	83	20.80			87	24.51
- Short/middle long	275	68.92			234	65.92
- Long	21	5.26			19	5.35
- Other	20	5.01			15	4.23
Occupation
- Employed	307	75.43			292	80.44			0.62
- Unemployed	99	24.32			69	19.01			0.12
Duration of pain (months)			22.88	47.97			23.07	45.59	0.98
Sick listed at baseline	209	52.12			182	50.56			0.76
Part time sick listed	40	10.23			39	11.71			0.61
Duration of sick listing (weeks)			10.10	12.50			9.90	14.89	0.91
Disability (Roland Morris 0–23) ^a			14.15	4.86			14.21	4.92	0.68
Pain (LBP rating scale 0–60) ^b			28.44	11.46			29.27	10.46	0.43
QoL (SF-36, physical 0–100) ^c			49.33	8.44			50.62	8.13	0.04
QoL (SF-36, mental 0–100) ^d			50.72	10.26			49.41	10.05	0.09
Fear avoidance (FAB-PA 0–24) ^e			15.65	5.46			15.54	5.17	0.86
Fear avoidance (FAB-W 0–42) ^f			23.22	11.79			23.69	11.02	0.51
Psychological (SCL-90) ^g			0.73	0.52			0.79	0.54	0.08
- Depression ^h			1.03	0.79			1.11	0.84
- Somatization ⁱ			1.11	0.58			1.19	0.59
Psychological total (above 1,5 on any sub scale SCL-90)	178	43.7			177	48.8			0.81

ISSN: 1471-2474