[Comparison of behavioral orthopedic and classical orthopedic rehabilitation : A retrospective cohort study on the factors of mental comorbidity, gender and employment status].

Background: Mental comorbidity plays an increasingly important role in determining the specific rehabilitation needs of patients in Germany in the context of other personal, social and occupational factors. In order to make the DRV's list of criteria more meaningful when assigning patients to one type of rehabilitation, this retrospective analysis is intended to determine from which of the two rehabilitation concepts examined (orthopedic rehabilitation or healing procedures (HV)/behavioral-medical orthopedic rehabilitation (BMOR)) patients with mental comorbidity (taking into account gender, employment status of the main orthopedic diagnosis) benefit more.

Methods: Using the screening questionnaires HADS‑A, HADS‑D, SIMBO and BPI as well as a hospital questionnaire at the beginning of rehabilitation, data from 913 subjects (529 m/384 w) were collected and evaluated. Of these, 43% were assigned to HV and 57% to BMOR. Thus, in addition to the main orthopedic diagnosis, the frequency distribution of the factors psychological comorbidity, sex and, employment status (in the sense of unemployment) was determined. Using HADS, the benefit was determined at the end of the therapy by comparing the score medians.

Results: Frequency distributions and the development of HADS scores show that the prior classification according to psychological comorbidity was correct. Women were more often affected by mental comorbidity and women achieved greater success in BMOR. Regarding the main orthopedic diagnosis, a high prevalence of cervical and lumbar spine complaints was found. According to logistic regression with model decomposition, the variables gender, HADS‑A and -D at the beginning of rehabilitation and the psychological comorbidity (yes/no) are suitable to correctly allocate the patients with 76.86% to one of the two types of therapy.

Conclusions: The presence of mental comorbidity appears to be a useful indicator that should be retained in the DRV's criteria catalog as one of the main criteria for allocation to BMOR. Female gender in connection with the presence of mental co-morbidity can also be considered a conclusive criterion. With regard to the main orthopedic diagnosis, cervical spine complaints may be particularly suitable as an allocation criterion.