Physicians' experience of and collaboration with return-to-work coordinators in healthcare: a cross-sectional study in Sweden

Erik Berglund; Emilie Friberg; Monika Engblom; Veronica Svärd

doi:10.1080/09638288.2023.2261851

Physicians' experience of and collaboration with return-to-work coordinators in healthcare: a cross-sectional study in Sweden

Disabil Rehabil. 2023 Sep 29:1-9. doi: 10.1080/09638288.2023.2261851. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Erik Berglund^{1

2}, Emilie Friberg¹, Monika Engblom¹, Veronica Svärd^{1

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Division of Insurance Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
² Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
³ Medical Unit Social Work in Health, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁴ Department of Social Sciences, Division of Social Work, Södertörn University, Huddinge, Sweden.

PMID: 37772755
DOI: 10.1080/09638288.2023.2261851

Abstract

Purpose: Return-to-work coordinators (RTWCs) give people on sick leave individualized support and coordinate between different stakeholders, including physicians. The aim of this study was to explore physicians' experience of RTWCs and investigate factors that influence how much physicians collaborate with RTWCs, or refer patients to them, in primary, orthopaedic, and psychiatric care clinics.

Materials and methods: Of the 1229 physicians responding to a questionnaire, 629 physicians who had access to a RTWC in their clinic answered to questions about collaborating with RTWCs.

Results: Among physicians who had access to a RTWC, 29.0% collaborated with a RTWC at least once a week. Physicians with a more favourable experience of RTWCs reported more frequent collaboration (adjusted OR 2.92, 95% CI 2.06-4.15). Physicians also collaborated more often with RTWCs if they reported to often deal with problematic sick-leave cases, patients with multiple diagnoses affecting work ability, and conflicts with patients over sickness certification.

Conclusions: Physicians who had more problematic sick-leave cases to handle and a favourable experience of RTWCs, also reported collaborating more often with RTWCs. The results indicate that RTWCs' facilitation of contacts with RTW stakeholders and improvements in the sickness certification process may be of importance for physicians.Implications for RehabilitationThis study of physicians' experience of collaborating with return-to-work coordinators (RTWCs) observes that physicians reported more collaboration with or referrals to coordinators if they had a favourable experience of coordinators.The results indicate that physicians report more collaboration with or referrals to RTWCs if they had more problematic sick-leave cases to handle in the clinic.These findings imply that it might be possible to increase the collaboration between physicians and RTWCs in clinical settings by managing factors of importance.

Keywords: RTW coordinator (RTWC); Sick leave; medical decision-making; return-to-work (RTW); vocational rehabilitation.