Research has suggested that a patient’s expectations of whether they will recover from the back and neck pain associated with whiplash influences whether or not they get better.
A team from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm in Sweden has published its findings in the online journal PLoS Medicine.
The researchers used data from just over 1,000 adult claimants from two insurance companies in Sweden.
As well as gathering details about their accident, health history, pain and symptoms since the crash, they also asked how likely they thought they were to recover from their injuries.
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Around a quarter of the patients said they believed they would make a full recovery from the back and neck pain associated with the whiplash.
It was discovered that people who said they were less likely to make a full recovery were most likely to have a high disability six months after the questionnaire.
