Abstract

REGAL RAMOS, Raúl Jesús. Whiplash: Epidemiological characteristics of patients evaluated in the Assessment of Disability Unit of Madrid. Med. segur. trab. [online]. 2011, vol.57, n.225, pp.348-360. ISSN 1989-7790.  https://dx.doi.org/10.4321/S0465-546X2011000400009.

Whiplash Syndrome (SLC) is a very common disease in primary care centers and in disability assessment units. Objetive: To determine the epidemiological characteristics of patients with SLC that, despite having no relevant anatomical changes, have had an unfavorable development that requires the assessment of disability for work. Method: A descriptive study was carries out collecting data of all the patients evaluated in the Medical Unit of The National Institute of Social Security of Madrid in the period from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2010 with the diagnosis of SLC. In order to exclude the most severe cases we discarded those with relevant anatomical changes, those which had required surgery and those with moderate - severe impairment in the neurophysiological study. In order to minimize the influence of other diseases, we also excluded patients with other important diagnoses from the point of view of disability assessment. We studied the variables age, gender, professional occupation, marital status, Social Security characteristics, common disease or labor disease, presence of anxiety-depressive symptoms and / or fibromyalgia. Result: The total number of patients studied was 203. In comparison with the general occupied population in our area with the same age range, we observed 15% more women (p = 0.015, prevalence ratio = 1.37), 23% more unmarried people (p <0.001 and reason prevalence ratio 1.63), 8% less intellectual scientific occupations, 8% more unskilled workers, a higher frequency of patients with psychiatric and / or fibromyalgia and advanced middle age. Conclusion: Our results are similar to those reported in the literature for the overall SLC for the variables age, gender and the presence of psychological disorders. They also allow to make a hypothesis such as marital status and occupation may act as predictors of poor outcome for these patients.

Keywords : Disability; Prognosis; Whiplash.

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