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Return to Work after Common Mental Disorders: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Expectations of the Involved Stakeholders

Common mental disorders (CMDs) are risk factors for long-term sickness absence and unemployment. Therefore, return-to-work (RTW) processes have been introduced to facilitate the return of employees. As the success of RTW processes is considered to be determined by the cooperativeness of the involved...

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Autores principales: Scharf, Jessica, Angerer, Peter, Müting, Gesine, Loerbroks, Adrian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7558125/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32932972
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186635
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author Scharf, Jessica
Angerer, Peter
Müting, Gesine
Loerbroks, Adrian
author_facet Scharf, Jessica
Angerer, Peter
Müting, Gesine
Loerbroks, Adrian
author_sort Scharf, Jessica
collection PubMed
description Common mental disorders (CMDs) are risk factors for long-term sickness absence and unemployment. Therefore, return-to-work (RTW) processes have been introduced to facilitate the return of employees. As the success of RTW processes is considered to be determined by the cooperativeness of the involved stakeholders, we aimed to investigate the views of those stakeholders to disclose potentially diverging expectations. Qualitative interviews were conducted (08/2018-04/2019) among five stakeholder groups: returnees with a diagnosed CMD who were eligible for a RTW process; health care professionals nominated by the returnees; supervisors, colleagues and occupational physicians (the latter three groups were not nominated by the returnees). In total, 24 returnees, 13 health care professionals, 13 occupational physicians, 9 supervisors and 9 colleagues were interviewed (68 interviews in total). Potentially diverging expectations of the stakeholders related to whether diagnoses need to be disclosed by returnees. Agreement existed in terms of the need for a trustful relationship between employees and occupational physicians to initiate a RTW process early. As the understanding of all stakeholders’ viewpoints is one of the main factors promoting a successful RTW, we explored the expectations of those involved in the RTW process. One implication of our findings is to strengthen the role of occupational physicians, who could coordinate the return process.
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spelling pubmed-75581252020-10-29 Return to Work after Common Mental Disorders: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Expectations of the Involved Stakeholders Scharf, Jessica Angerer, Peter Müting, Gesine Loerbroks, Adrian Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Common mental disorders (CMDs) are risk factors for long-term sickness absence and unemployment. Therefore, return-to-work (RTW) processes have been introduced to facilitate the return of employees. As the success of RTW processes is considered to be determined by the cooperativeness of the involved stakeholders, we aimed to investigate the views of those stakeholders to disclose potentially diverging expectations. Qualitative interviews were conducted (08/2018-04/2019) among five stakeholder groups: returnees with a diagnosed CMD who were eligible for a RTW process; health care professionals nominated by the returnees; supervisors, colleagues and occupational physicians (the latter three groups were not nominated by the returnees). In total, 24 returnees, 13 health care professionals, 13 occupational physicians, 9 supervisors and 9 colleagues were interviewed (68 interviews in total). Potentially diverging expectations of the stakeholders related to whether diagnoses need to be disclosed by returnees. Agreement existed in terms of the need for a trustful relationship between employees and occupational physicians to initiate a RTW process early. As the understanding of all stakeholders’ viewpoints is one of the main factors promoting a successful RTW, we explored the expectations of those involved in the RTW process. One implication of our findings is to strengthen the role of occupational physicians, who could coordinate the return process. MDPI 2020-09-11 2020-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7558125/ /pubmed/32932972 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186635 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Scharf, Jessica
Angerer, Peter
Müting, Gesine
Loerbroks, Adrian
Return to Work after Common Mental Disorders: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Expectations of the Involved Stakeholders
title Return to Work after Common Mental Disorders: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Expectations of the Involved Stakeholders
title_full Return to Work after Common Mental Disorders: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Expectations of the Involved Stakeholders
title_fullStr Return to Work after Common Mental Disorders: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Expectations of the Involved Stakeholders
title_full_unstemmed Return to Work after Common Mental Disorders: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Expectations of the Involved Stakeholders
title_short Return to Work after Common Mental Disorders: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Expectations of the Involved Stakeholders
title_sort return to work after common mental disorders: a qualitative study exploring the expectations of the involved stakeholders
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7558125/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32932972
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186635
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