What measures help people with health impairments when they want to return to work? What are essential conditions for a successful comeback after illness and therapy and what obstacles can block the way to successful reintegration? Researchers at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (KU) are analyzing these phenomena in collaboration with colleagues from Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg in a five-year project funded by the German pension fund Deutsche Rentenversicherung. The project is led by psychologist Prof. Dr. Joachim Thomas (Chair of Psychological Diagnosis and Intervention, KU) and sociologist Prof. Dr. Heike Ohlbrecht (Chair of General Sociology/Microsociology, OVGU).
As part of the comprehensive study, the researchers are examining hundreds of rehabilitation journeys and reintegration attempts of their partners, the vocational promotion centers (Berufsförderungswerke) in Bad Wildbad (Baden-Wuerttemberg) and Birkenfeld (Rhineland-Palatinate). “The aim of our study is to find out how and where problems arise and how it can be avoided that successfully started reintegration attempts are quit prematurely,” the researchers say. In order to do so, they are going to interview rehabilitation patients from the two vocational promotion centers, some at the centers but also some at the patients’ homes. At the end of the project, requirements for successful rehabilitation measures will be defined, which will be used to write up concrete recommendations to rehabilitation and integration facilities on how patients can succeed in coming back to work after a long gap.
“For every patient, we look at their entire rehabilitation and integration journey, from the point where a rehabilitation was decided on to the end of the measure, be it from quitting or because the measure ran out its course or the patient started working again,” says Professor Heike Ohlbrecht.
In the last 15 years, the number of applications for services supporting participation in work life has risen nationwide by more than 50 percent from about 264,000 applications to almost 435,000, says Professor Ohlbrecht. It is above all two diagnostic groups that lead to a need for these services: diseases of the muscles, the skeleton or the connective tissue and - with rising prominence - mental illnesses. Further need for action in research stems from an increase in retirement figures due to psychosomatic illnesses in Germany. “Institutional connections, i.e. the constructive coupling of services provided by the treating physicians, the rehabilitation provider, company reintegration and the job center will become more important in this context,” says Professor Joachim Thomas. The pension insurance system, in turn, must react to this and provide corresponding interlinked services.
As for the people affected, many of them experience an increasingly confusing labor market and changed working conditions due to digitalization and home office during their reintegration. Compared with the situation just ten years ago, new gender and family relationships are also playing a growing role in professional reintegration after a health crisis. For example the proportion of working women has increased, who must be given jobs that are appropriate to their qualifications. “The decisions to take on your old job, a new one or none at all, a job that pays less but has better conditions or to put off searching for a job for some time depends on a complex set of conditions that we would like to study in more detail,” the research team says.
In view of the shortage of skilled workers and the changes in the way we work, keeping people with health problems fit for work will be an important long-term task for society in the future. The aim is for people to keep working longer and stay healthier and even after a health crisis and the resultant time-out, to be able to return to work with energy if they so wish.
The research project “Success factors in vocational rehabilitation and integration processes - an analysis of individual histories in vocational promotion centers” is one of ten projects under the common research focus of “Advancement of vocational rehabilitation” that the German pension insurance Deutsche Rentenversicherung will be funding until 2026. Eight insurers have joined ranks with the Deutsche Rentenversicherung to initiate this research focus across different insurance providers.
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