Prevention of reduced working ability with an Expert System with telephone, motivational interviews supporting self-management (Experten-Prävention bei gefährdeter Erwerbsfähigkeit durch telefonische, motivierende Interviews zur Unterstützung des Selbstmanagement)
– funded by the Deutsche Rentenversicherung Oldenburg Bremen (DRV OL-HB) –
Medical rehabilitations are supposed to help people with an endangered ability to work to regain their strength and capabilities, for them to continue to work in a healthy way and remain fit. Not much is known, however, about which measures have a long-lasting effect on people’s ability to prolong their time of work.
Personal experiences of rehabilitation participants are an extremely valuable insight. EXPERTIS focuses on understanding the participants’ opinions, wishes and attitudes towards medical rehabilitations and their personal resources to regain their capabilities to work. Personal, social and contextual factors, measures and offers, as well as goals, plans and behaviors, will be taken into consideration to evaluate the effectiveness of medical rehabilitation on returning to or continuing to work.
The research project EXPERTIS is based on findings of the project “Time-Limited Disability Pension Benefits and Return to Work” (Befristete Erwebsminderungsrente und Rückkehr in dAs Erwerbsleben – Themen und Erwartungen von Erwerbsminderungs-RenterInnen BERATER). In EXPERTIS we are looking at measures that could help people receiving disability pension benefits, to return to (full-/part-time) employment. EXPERTIS will now focus on the medical rehabilitation of patients and their perception of the rehabilitation’s (long-term) effectiveness for returning to work.
In order to collect the data, voluntary participants will be asked to fill out a questionnaire when arriving at the rehabilitation facility and will subsequently participate in two motivational telephone interviews after six and 12 months. The data will be analyzed comparing the responses of people over the three measurement points, providing insights about the long-lasting effects of the rehabilitation. All analyses will be done only on a group level and responses cannot be traced back to any individual participant.
The objective of the project is to identify effective and useful measures to improve rehabilitation plans in order to optimally support participants in their goal to continue their work, after finishing their medical rehabilitation.
Prof. Sonia Lippke
Email: s.lippke@jacobs-university.de; Tel.: 0421/200-4730