Objectives: To study self-reported driving habits after whiplash injury and to determine any relation among self-reported driving habits, selected sensorimotor impairments, and psychologic features.
Design: Repeated-measures, case-controlled.
Setting: Tertiary institution.
Participants: Subjects (n=30) with chronic whiplash and 30 asymptomatic controls.
Interventions: Not applicable.
Main outcome measures: The Driving Habits Questionnaire (composite driving tasks score), Neck Disability Index (NDI), 28-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28), Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R), Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia, cervical range of motion, cervical joint position error, and smooth pursuit neck torsion test.
Results: Subjects in the whiplash group had equal driving exposure and driving spaces (distances, locations) compared with control subjects but reported significantly more driving difficulty with most driving tasks (P<.01). There were no significant correlations between the composite driving tasks score and any of the sensorimotor impairments, but there were significant and moderate correlations between the composite driving task score and both pain and disability (NDI score, .518) and anxiety (GHQ-28 score, .518; IES-R score, .524).
Conclusions: Persons with chronic whiplash have greater self-reported driving difficulty than controls, which appears to relate more to reported levels of pain and disability and psychologic stress than laboratory measures of features of cervical sensorimotor control.