Linda Ahlstrom

Social support outside work and return to work among women on long-term sick leave working within human service organizations

AIM To investigate the relationships between return to work and social support outside work among women on long-term sick leave from human service organizations. BACKGROUND Work is an important part of life and is, in general, considered to be supportive of health and wellbeing. Few studies have thoroughly investigated the importance of aspects of social support outside work for return to work. METHODS A cohort of women on long-term sick leave was followed with questionnaires from 2005 to 2012. RESULTS The availability of social attachment increased the womens work ability, return to work, and vitality significantly more over time. There were positive relationships between return to work and seeking support in terms of emotional support and comfort and expressing unpleasant feelings. CONCLUSIONS Important resources to increase return to work can be found in factors outside work, such as close social relationships and support seeking. Thus, it is important to take the womans whole life situation into account and not focus solely on aspects related to the workplace.

Workplace rehabilitation and supportive work conditions of importance for increased work ability and RTW – a prospective study of women on long-term sick leave in Sweden

Objectives The aim of the study was to investigate association between work ability and return to work (RTW) with special focus on workplace rehabilitation in combination with supportive conditions at work. Methods Questionnaire data from a cohort of women (n=324) working within Human Service Organization, on long-term sick leave (>60 days) were used (baseline, 6 months and 12 months). To investigate the importance of interactive conditions of workplace rehabilitation and supportive conditions on the effect of work ability and RTW, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used. Results Work ability index increased significantly more at 12 month in the group that had workplace rehabilitation and supportive conditions such as influence at work (diff=7, 95% CI (2 to 12)), degree of freedom at work (diff=5, 95% CI (0 to 10) and work satisfaction (diff=9, 95% CI (4 to 15)), than the group that had workplace rehabilitation and no supportive conditions. Results were similar for single-item on work ability, additionally significant for increased work ability index among the group that had workplace rehabilitation and possibilities for development at work (diff=2, 95% CI (0 to 5). Working degree increased significantly more at 12 month in the group that had workplace rehabilitation and supportive conditions such as sense of feeling welcomed (diff=24, 95% CI (2 to 46), influence (diff=24, 95% CI (3 to 44), and satisfaction at work (diff=28, 95% CI (4 to 52), compared to workplace rehabilitation and no supportive conditions. Conclusions The results in this study suggest the importance of integrating workplace rehabilitation with supportive conditions at work to increase work ability and improve the RTW process for women being on long term sick leave.