Washington: Agree or not, bad jobs are a pain in the back, say researchers. A new study, led by Queensland University, has shown that if one is unhappy with one’s job, chances are that one could take longer to recover from a back pain than their less-stressed peers in the office. 

According to the researchers, people working in a high-demand but low-control office environment, or who had an unhelpful management style at work, are more likely to suffer from lower back pain because of “biopsychosocial” factors. “In fact, the biopsychosocial model, which recognises the importance of biological, psychological and social factors in illnesses is now understood to be central in understanding human health in general, and pain in particular,” lead author Nick Penney said. 

To gauge how accurate social and psychological factors were at predicting the recovery outcome of lower back pain, the researchers developed a questionnaire that was answered by 91 research participants in Australia and 40 from New Zealand. The researchers found that the extent of recovery depended more on the context surrounding the injury than the injury itself, a release from the university said.

“For example, if someone agreed that back pain was dominating their life, they appeared to have a worse recovery prognosis than someone who disagreed,” Penney said. The study showed that associated psychological and social factors of back pain sufferers were adequate for predicting the recovery outcome and length of time without further diagnostic testing.