Modified work: Prevalence and characteristics in a sample of workers with soft-tissue injuries

Modified-work programs are designed to facilitate the return to work for em ployees with a work-related injury. Although extensive published literature exists that describes and evaluates "ideal" programs, to date there is a p aucity of data describing practice. To address this pertinent issue, we adm inistered a survey to a large sample of 1833 workers with soft-tissue injur ies in. Ontario, Canada, and asked them detailed questions about modified w ork and employer contact. Our results reveal that most workers (66%) were c ontacted by someone from their workplace to check on how they were doing. H owever, only a minority (36%) were offered arrangements by their employer t o help them return to work after developing a work-related soft-tissue inju ry. Most arrangements that were offered to injured workers consisted of suc h temporary modifications as reduced hours (24%), flexible work hours (25%) , or a lighter job (57%) rather than more permanent changes to the way that work is conducted such as changes to the work layout or equipment (8%). Me rely being contacted by the workplace to check on how the worker was doing was not associated with reduced compensation benefit duration. Workplace of fers of arrangements to help the worker return to work we-re associated wit h reduced compensation benefit duration but were not statistically associat ed with workers' pain, grade.