Psychologist Track

Determining causation

Chapter 04 · 4 min
The four-factor causation worksheet and the industrial determination
What you’ll learn
  • Complete the four-factor causation worksheet so the factors sum to 100%
  • Apply the >50% work-exposure rule to reach the industrial determination
  • State the

Causation is where the §3208.3 standard you learned in Foundations becomes a form you fill out. The worksheet is psychologist-only — an LPCC who reaches it is redirected — because this opinion is yours to form and own.

§3208.3The predominant-cause standard: a psychiatric injury is industrial only when actual events of employment are more than 50% of all combined causes.

The worksheet lays out four factors — work exposure, pre-existing, non-industrial, and good-faith personnel action — that must sum to 100%, a clinical-rationale narrative where you explain your reasoning, and the Industrial / Non-Industrial determination, which resolves to industrial when work exposure exceeds 50%.

For Sofia, you weigh the evidence and assign work 70 / pre-existing 10 / non-industrial 15 / personnel action 5. The factors total 100, work exposure is well over half, and the determination is Industrial. You write the rationale that ties those numbers to the fatal collision she witnessed and the screeners that document her response.

The #563 guardrail

CareHub Intelligence assembles the supporting evidence — intake answers, screeners, flagged quotes — and cites it for you. It does not, and a standing disclaimer states it will not, suggest the percentages or the determination. You assign the factors. You write the opinion. The system organizes; the psychologist decides.

The most common error here is treating the largest single factor as the answer. The standard is not "which slice is biggest" — it is "is work more than half of everything combined." A split where work is the largest factor but lands at or below 50% is not industrial, even though no other single cause beats it.

Check your understanding

A worksheet shows work 45 / pre-existing 25 / non-industrial 20 / personnel action 10. Work is the single largest factor. Is the injury industrial?