Background: Being able to participate in work is an important determinant of health. Therefore, reintegration professionals provide support to clients to return to work (RTW). Since RTW has a significant impact on a client's life, it is preferred that clients are involved in the decision-making process of RTW. A method to do so, is shared decision-making (SDM), involving the following steps: collaborating as a team, explaining to clients that they can be part of the decision-making process, setting a shared goal, presenting and discussing choice options, and making a shared decision.
Objective: We explored how clients experience and prefer these SDM steps in their current and ideal interaction with professionals.
Methods: We performed semi-structured interviews with fourteen clients receiving support in their RTW process from four different municipalities.
Results: Clients emphasised the importance of collaborating as team. None of the clients reported having been told that they could be part of the decision-making process, or discussed a shared goal with a professional, which they would prefer. Some clients were presented choice options. When choice options were discussed, frequently only the negative aspects of choice options were explained by the professional. A great number of clients experienced that shared decisions were made, but based this on the shared effort made by the client and professional to RTW.
Conclusions: Clients generally wish to cooperate and participate in the decision-making process, but their ability to do so is limited due to not being fully involved in the SDM steps.
Keywords: Self-management; autonomy; client participation; employment; evidence-based.