Abstract
There is a desire to reduce the economic burden of low back pain. This in is part because of the 226% increase in invalidity benefits paid out for spinal disorders in the ten years to 1994/5. This paper examines the effect of the change from Invalidity Benefit to Incapacity Benefit in 1995, and considers the utility of these figures as a means of assessing changing patterns of back pain disability.
Data were obtained from the DSS on how benefit data were collected and numbers of days of Invalidity/Incapacity Benefits that were paid from 1983/4 to 1998/9. The data suggest that since 1995 that the rate of spinal disability has fallen and has now been stable at 90 million days per year for four years. The headline Incapacity Benefit figures have a very loose relationship with health impact of low back pain. Around 30,000 people per year make the transition to claiming long term Incapacity Benefit from claiming short term Incapacity Benefit.
Incapacity Benefit figures are of little utility in assessing changes in low back pain disability. Numbers making the transition to Long Term Incapacity Benefit may be a more useful indicator.
The abstracts were prepared by Dr C Pither. Correspondence should be addressed to him at the British Orthopaedic Association, Royal College of Surgeons, 35–43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PN
