Return to Work Among Patients With Stress Related Mental Disorders - An Intervention in the Swedish Primary Care (PRIMA)

The aim of this project is to develop a model for return to work (RTW) for patients sick listed due to stress related mental disorders, which takes into account each patient's specific situation; includes the workplace, and is well adapted to the Swedish primary care setting.

In late 2016, general practitioners (GPs) and rehabilitation coordinators at both public and private primary care centers will be offered a one-day training about work and workability for patients with stress related mental disorders. Also, the participants will be trained in a specific method that includes the patient's employer early in the rehabilitation process

The project has a quasi-experimental and longitudinal design. The intervention will be conducted on 15 different primary care centers, which will be matched with a comparison group. Return to work for 500 patients will be analyzed using registry data, 6, 12 and 18 months after sick-listing. The hypothesis is that patients who are sick-listed at primary care centers that completely or partially implemented the specific method on average will return earlier to work than patients sick-listed at primary care centers that did not implement the method.

Alongside studying if the intervention has an effect on the patients' RTW over time, the investigators aim to investigate the mechanisms explaining the effects and the individual and organizational level (primary care units) circumstances necessary for these mechanisms to be triggered. To gain deeper knowledge about mechanisms and context, the investigators will conduct interviews with the treatment staff and collect registry data about the primary care units.