CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 13Workplace Health and Well-beingMedical Practices and RehabilitationPsychiatric care and mental health services

Patient characteristics in a return to work programme for common mental disorders: a cross-sectional study

Open access
Victor, Mattias, Lau, Bjørn, Ruud, Torleif·2016·BMC Public Health
DOI 10.1186/s12889-016-3431-0PMC PMC4977655
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Mental health problems are a growing cause of sickness absence. There are programmes in many countries to facilitate return to work (RTW) after sickness absence. In Norway, there has been some controversy about patients on sick-leave being prioritized over other patient groups, such as those with more severe diagnoses. However, it is not clear whether patients in RTW programmes actually do differ from patients in regular services. METHODS: This study compared 270 patients treated in an RTW outpatient clinic and 86 patients treated in a regular outpatient clinic, both in specialized mental health care, on patient characteristics, history of treatment and mental health status. Analyses of differences between groups were done by ANOVA tests, chi-square test and logistic regression. RESULTS: Patients in the RTW clinic had lower scores on the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation Outcome Measure (CORE-OM). There was no difference in health-related quality of life. RTW patients were somewhat older and more likely to live in relationships and have children, and they had higher incomes. Work participation, previous psychiatric hospitalization and present diagnosis contributed uniquely to an explanation of which patients were included in the respective clinics. The RTW clinic seems to reach its intended target group. Almost all of the patients in this group participated in the work arena, and their psychopathologies were clearly dominated by common mental disorders. Most RTW patients' general practitioners had followed them fairly closely in the year before referral, suggesting previous attempts at treatment in primary care settings. CONCLUSIONS: Relative to outpatients in a specialized mental health care setting, RTW patients had lower symptoms, but still in the same moderate range of severity. They suffered the same reduction in quality of life. Almost all of the RTW patients were diagnosed with illnesses that can be treated effectively, about half of them had recurring mental health problems and many of them had been treated in primary care settings before referral. These findings indicate that this group has significant health problems that can benefit from treatment in specialized health care settings.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1186/s12889-016-3431-0

Cites

50 of 50 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The RTW programme has shown promising results, but it has been criticised for excluding patients with more extensive problems.

    “The RTW programme has shown promising results, but it has been criticised for excluding patients with more extensive problems [29]”

    From Measuring the Effect of the Early assessment Team (MEET) for patients referred to outpatient mental health care: a study protocol for a randomised controlled trial (2024) · cites this paper as [29]

    The Background (page unavailable) reports ethical controversy over prioritizing RTW patients over people with more severe diagnoses, and the Discussion says the RTW group appeared not to include the most severely ill patients. That supports the criticism, though the paper frames it as a concern about prioritization rather than a demonstrated blanket exclusion. The Conclusions say it remains to be seen whether the programme will achieve its goal; they do not report promising programme outcomes. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 51 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Victor, M., Lau, B., & Ruud, T.
Affiliations
University of Oslo (NO)
Corresponding author
Victor, Mattias
ORCID
Venue
BMC Public Health
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2016-08-08
Volume
16
Issue
1
Pages
745-745
ISSN
1471-2458 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1186/s12889-016-3431-0
PMC
PMC4977655
OpenAlex
W2483359297
Cited by
13
References
51
Citations by year
2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 1 · 2017: 2
FWCI
1.86
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • BMC Public Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Workplace Health and Well-being
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation › Medical Practices and Rehabilitation
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychiatric care and mental health services
Keywords
return to work, common mental disorders, sick leave, specialized mental health care, outpatient clinics, patient characteristics, work participation, health-related quality of life, psychiatric hospitalization, primary care, psychiatric referral
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Age Factors, Mental Disorders, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Norway, Sex Factors, Socioeconomic Factors, Time Factors, Program Evaluation, Sick Leave, Young Adult, Return to Work

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review