Conclusions
Arm pain, disability, pain
SECONDARY, LATERAL EPICONDYLITIS
Although not powered as a trial for workers only, our findings suggest that advising activity was as beneficial for people currently in paid work and may be superior to advice to rest in reducing disability. Addressing harmful beliefs about causation of symptoms has the potential to reduce disability.Arm pain is a common problem in the workplace. In contrast with the standard biomedical management of distal arm pain, these secondary analyses suggest that advising workers to keep using their arms as much as possible leads to less disability at 6 months, particularly amongst workers who lift heavy weights or believe work caused their symptoms. Early physiotherapy, however, made no difference to disability outcomes. Similar results were seen amongst workers diagnosed with lateral epicondylitis.