Development of a score for assessing severity, predicting interventions and prognosis of musculoskeletal disorders

Abstract

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD's) are a constellation of disorders. There is no single tool available which guides the clinicians to predict the severity, intervention and recovery period of the patients who is suffering from different musculoskeletal disorder. In this paper authors tried to categorize the severity of the musculoskeletal discomfort and the prognosis of the recovery period. The questionnaire was formulated using different epidemiological risk factor of the development of MSD and the effect of MSD on physical and psychosocial factors. The questionnaire contains 13 questions which include seven direct (rating was 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10) and six indirect (rating was 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) questions. Results revealed a significant correlation with the prognosis of recovery and the actual recovery period (r= 0.80). It also showed a significant correlation between the total severity score and the actual recovery (r=0.82) period. Depending on the prognosis of the recovery the severity score was segregated in four categories as mild, moderate, severe and complicated. Due to small sample size the prognosis of recovery for higher severity score could not be plotted.