Purpose The objective of this systematic review was to synthesize evidence on the effectiveness of workplace-based return-to-work (RTW) interventions and work disability management (DM) interventions that assist workers with musculoskeletal (MSK) and pain-related conditions and mental health (MH) conditions with RTW. Methods We followed a systematic review process developed by the Institute for Work & Health and an adapted best evidence synthesis that ranked evidence as strong, moderate, limited, or insufficient. Results Seven electronic databases were searched from January 1990 until April 2015, yielding 8898 non-duplicate references. Evidence from 36 medium and high quality studies were synthesized on 12 different intervention categories across three broad domains: health-focused, service coordination, and work modification interventions. There was strong evidence that duration away from work from both MSK or pain-related conditions and MH conditions were significantly reduced by multi-domain interventions encompassing at least two of the three domains. There was moderate evidence that these multi-domain interventions had a positive impact on cost outcomes. There was strong evidence that cognitive behavioural therapy interventions that do not also include workplace modifications or service coordination components are not effective in helping workers with MH conditions in RTW. Evidence for the effectiveness of other single-domain interventions was mixed, with some studies reporting positive effects and others reporting no effects on lost time and work functioning. Conclusions While there is substantial research literature focused on RTW, there are only a small number of quality workplace-based RTW intervention studies that involve workers with MSK or pain-related conditions and MH conditions. We recommend implementing multi-domain interventions (i.e. with healthcare provision, service coordination, and work accommodation components) to help reduce lost time for MSK or pain-related conditions and MH conditions. Practitioners should also consider implementing these programs to help improve work functioning and reduce costs associated with work disability.

Clinical quality registries (CQRs) are playing an increasingly important role in improving health outcomes and reducing health care costs. CQRs are established with the purpose of monitoring quality of care, providing feedback, benchmarking performance, describing pattern of treatment, reducing variation and as a tool for conducting research. To synthesise the impact of clinical quality registries (CQRs) as an ‘intervention’ on (I) mortality/survival; (II) measures of outcome that reflect a process or outcome of health care; (III) health care utilisation; and (IV) healthcare-related costs. The following electronic databases were searched: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL, CINAHL and Google Scholar. In addition, a review of the grey literature and a reference check of citations and reference lists within articles was undertaken to identify relevant studies in English covering the period January 1980 to December 2016. The PRISMA-P methodology, checklist and standard search strategy using pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria and structured data extraction tools were used. Data on study design and methods, participant characteristics attributes of included registries and impact of the registry on outcome measures and/or processes of care were extracted. We identified 30102 abstracts from which 75 full text articles were assessed and finally 17 articles were selected for synthesis. Out of 17 studies, six focused on diabetes care, two on cardiac diseases, two on lung diseases and others on organ transplantations, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcer healing, surgical complications and kidney disease. The majority of studies were “before after” design (#11) followed by cohort design (#2), randomised controlled trial (#2), experimental non randomised study and one cross sectional comparison. The measures of impact of registries were multifarious and included change in processes of care, quality of care, treatment outcomes, adherence to guidelines and survival. Sixteen of 17 studies demonstrated positive findings in their outcomes after implementation of the registry. Despite the large number of published articles using data derived from CQRs, few have rigorously evaluated the impact of the registry as an intervention on improving health outcomes. Those that have evaluated this impact have mostly found a positive impact on healthcare processes and outcomes. PROSPERO CRD42015017319

The objective of our study was to describe factors associated with repeat workers' compensation claims and to compare the work disability arising in workers with single and multiple compensation claims.

Multifocal VEP (mfVEP) responses were obtained from 13 normal human subjects for nine test conditions, covering three viewing conditions (dichoptic and left and right monocular), and three different temporal stimulation forms (rapid contrast reversal, rapid pattern pulse presentation, and slow pattern pulse presentation). The rapid contrast reversal stimulus had pseudorandomized reversals of checkerboards in each visual field region at a mean rate of 25 reversals/s, similar to most mfVEP studies to date. The rapid pattern pulse presentation had pseudorandomized presentations of a checkerboard for one frame, interspersed with uniform grey frames, with a mean rate of 25 presentations/s per region per eye. The slow pattern pulse stimulus had six presentations/s per region per eye. Recording time was 5.3 min/condition. For dichoptic presentation slow pattern pulse responses were 4.6 times larger in amplitude than the contrast reversal responses. Binocular suppression was greatest for the contrast reversal stimulus. Consideration of the signal-to-noise ratios indicated that to achieve a given level of reliability, slow pattern pulse stimuli would require half the recording time of contrast reversal stimuli for monocular viewing, and 0.4 times the recording time for dichoptically presented stimuli. About half the responses to the slow pattern pulse stimuli had peak value exceeding five times their estimated standard error. Responses were about 20% smaller in the upper visual field locations. Space–time decomposition showed that responses to slow pattern pulse were more consistent across visual field locations. We conclude that the pattern pulse stimuli, which we term temporally sparse, maintain the visual system in a high contrast gain state. This more than compensates for the smaller number of presentations in the run, and provides signal-to-noise advantages that may be valuable in clinical application.