Help us to improve the website - give your feedback.

RR399 - Improved early pain management for musculoskeletal disorders

This report examines the usefulness of secondary intervention pain management techniques in helping people with musculoskeletal disorders (MSD's) to stay at work or get back to work in the early stages of an episode. The methodology adopted was mainly that of narrative review to present the latest evidence and authoritative evidence-based guidance addressing such measures and barriers to their implementation. Care Pathways, consistent with our findings, are proposed.

The Pathways are for use in the first few weeks of an episode that threatens, or causes, work loss. They are for employees, employers and (if necessary) health professionals, where the latter can provide assessment and evidence-based intervention within one week of request. The evidence was variable in quality across the spectrum of MSDs, with upper limb disorders in need of the greatest development. As well as effective care for these disorders, we have taken into consideration their natural history and barriers to positive outcome.

This report and the work it describes were funded by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Its contents, including any opinions and/or conclusions expressed, are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect HSE policy.

Visit the RR399 report (PDF) [12]

The Research Report Series are produced in Adobe Acrobat. The use of the latest version of the software is recommended which is available at the Adobe website via the link on this page.

Assistance in the use of Adobe Acrobat PDF files is available on our FAQs[13] page.

Link URLs in this page

  1. Science and Evidencehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/RESEARCH/index.htm
  2. Annual Science Reviewhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/RESEARCH/review.htm
  3. Find a publicationhttps://www.hsl.gov.uk/publications-and-products
  4. Science and Evidence FAQshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/RESEARCH/faqs.htm
  5. Overview - Resourceshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/RESEARCH/publish.htm
  6. Research Report serieshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/RESEARCH/rrhtm/index.htm
  7. Coronavirus research reportshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/RESEARCH/coronavirus-science-research.htm
  8. Workplace Health Expert Committee (WHEC)https://www.hse.gov.uk/RESEARCH/workplace-health-expert-committee.htm
  9. Insight researchhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/RESEARCH/insight.htm
  10. Shared research programmehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/RESEARCH/shared-research-programme.htm
  11. HSE: Innovation in Regulationhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/RESEARCH/innovation-in-regulation.htm
  12. Visit the RR399 reporthttps://www.hse.gov.uk/RESEARCH/rrpdf/rr399.pdf
  13. FAQshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/faq.htm
  14. Research Reports (RR)https://www.hse.gov.uk/RESEARCH/rrhtm/index.htm
  15. More resourceshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/RESEARCH/publish.htm
  16. Find a publicationhttps://www.hsl.gov.uk/resources/hse-science-and-research-publications/
  17. Research report serieshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/RESEARCH/rrhtm/index.htm
  18. Annual Science Reviewhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/RESEARCH/review.htm
  19. HSE Buxton Laboratoryhttps://www.hsl.gov.uk/
  20. Contract opportunitieshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/sellingtohse/contracts.htm
  21. Statisticshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/index.htm
  22. HSE jobshttp://careers.hse.gov.uk/
  23. Chief Scientific Advisershttps://www.gov.uk/government/groups/chief-scientific-advisers
  24. Government Science and Engineeringhttps://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/civil-service-government-science-engineering

Is this page useful?

Updated 2021-04-19