Objective
Recovery after minor musculoskeletal injuries is often disproportionately protracted. Our aim was to relate Short Form-36
(SF-36), to self-perceived recovery assessed with the question” Do you feel recovered”. We hypothesized that restitution of
physical factors would be reported at least as often as improvement of symptoms or impairments and that social and mental
factors would dominate over physical as determinants for recovery. We followed 318 patients with minor traffic-related injuries
for up to 6 months.
Results
For all SF-36 subscores more than 60% of the recovered patients had returned to their pre-injury levels. The subscores with
the highest proportions (> 80%) were all mainly reflecting disability. For no subscore, however, was the proportion 100%.
Normalizations in the SF-36 subscores for “Bodily Pain” (BP) (Odds Ratio, OR = 7.2), “Role limitations due to physical function”
(OR = 5.3) were associated with self-perceived recovery.
Conclusion
Abolition of pain appears to be paramount for the self-perceived recovery, but it is neither a sufficient nor a necessary
prerequisite. Contrary to our expectation, physical aspects of functional health status were more strongly associated with
recovery than were emotional or social aspects.
Keywords Functional health status - Injury - Musculoskeletal - Recovery - Traffic