Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSD) and Mental Health: The Role of Psychosocial Factors in Optimizing Prevention

Author

Heather Johnston

Key messages

• Relationships between psychosocial factors, MSD, and mental health outcomes are multi-directional.
• Psychosocial factors can act to both increase or decrease risk of injury.
• Few of the widely used MSD risk assessment tools incorporate psychosocial factors, highlighting an area for improvement in assessment.

Implications for the prevention of MSD

• Incorporating psychosocial factors in current risk assessments may optimize prevention strategies to address both MSD and mental health outcomes.
• Capturing magnitude and temporal considerations may be helpful for interpreting psychosocial factors.
• The provided resources may highlight some helpful items for risk assessment toolkits.