Evaluation of the Demand- and Ability Protocol to promote early employer involvement and return to work for people with common mental disorders or chronic pain
Early contact between employees on sick leave and their supervisors, and adjustments at work increase the chances of returning to work, but this is difficult to achieve in practice. This project investigates how patients with common mental disorders and/or long-term pain who meet with a rehabilitation coordinator in primary care, and employers, experience a dialogue tool to promote employer involvement, return to work and to identify adaptations at work.
Details
- Funder: ALF, RFR
Project description
Primary care has a significant role in the rehabilitation of patients with common mental disorders and long-term pain, and in recent years with an increased focus on sick leave issues and return to work. There are existing knowledge about important factors for reducing the length of sick leave and increasing sustainable return to work, such as early involvement of the employer/workplace. However, there is a lack of research on approaches that take these factors into account.
The aim of this project is to evaluate a dialogue tool for collaboration between patient and manager with a focus on return to work regarding usability and effect on the patient's health, return to work, work ability and trust in the manager. Furthermore, the aim is to identify hindering and promoting factors for feasibility, usability and implementation of the intervention.
The dialogue tool is called the Demand and Ability Protocol (DAP) and is an intervention consisting of a structured dialogue between employer and patient/employee. The dialogue reviews the balance between the demands of the job and the patient's functional capacity in the current job, to identify possible adaptations and measures in the job.
The project consists of several sub-studies where data is collected via questionnaires, registers and interviews. About 60 patients and 60 managers are included in the project. For the same number of patients, data is collected from registers.
Data collection is done with digital questionnaires sent on three occasions; before the intervention (baseline), 3 and 9 months after. The surveys are sent to patients and employers. In addition, data is collected from registers where the persons are matched to the patients regarding diagnosis, age, gender and previous sick leave. Data on sickness absence for 12 months before intervention and 12 months after intervention (two years in total) are collected. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews with patients and employers are conducted approximately 1-2 months after the DAP dialogue.
Studying interventions that aim to promote employer and patient/employee collaboration is important as it is a factor that has been shown to have an effect on return to work. It is also important to evaluate structured interventions regarding rehabilitation coordination as previous research shows that it is currently lacking. The aim of the project is to contribute knowledge about whether DAP is an intervention that can help to promote return to work for patients who have been on sick leave in primary care.