A Mega-Ethnography of Qualitative Meta-Syntheses on Return to Work in People with Chronic Health Conditions.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to synthesize the findings of qualitative meta-syntheses (QMS) on return to work (RTW) of people with different chronic illnesses and to develop a generic RTW model that can provide advice on how to improve RTW interventions and strategies.

Methods: We conducted a systematic literature search in PubMed, Epistemonikos, CENTRAL, and PsycARTICLES to find relevant QMS, published in English or German between 2000 and 2021, and adapted the meta-ethnographic approach of Noblit and Hare to synthesize their findings.

Results: Nineteen QMS (five focusing on musculoskeletal disorders or chronic pain, four on acquired or traumatic brain injuries, four on cancer, two on mental disorders, one on spinal cord injury, and three on mixed samples) met our inclusion criteria for the meta-ethnographic synthesis.

[Forms of Use of Psychosomatic Rehabilitation by Patients - A Study on the Significance of the Moment of Entrance in the Rehabilitation Setting and the Dependence on the Individual Situation at Admission to Rehabilitation].

Background And Aims: As expectancies of patients and physicians in psychosomatic rehabilitation are not always congruent, we focused on the patients' subjective expectancies toward rehabilitation in relation to the perceived benefit of the treatment for return to work and on the individual forms of utilization of the therapeutic services in the setting of psychosomatic clinics. A special focus was given to the changes in the patients' evaluations and coping behaviours over a follow-up period of 18 months.

Methods: N=105 participants (F-3/F-4 Main-Diagnosis, specific vocational problems, under 3 months jobless) of 4 psychosomatic rehabilitation settings were asked for their situation at the end of the rehabilitation by means of a questionnaire.

[Trajectories and Biographical Constellations in a Long-Term Study on Vocational Retraining and their Effects on Return to Work and Sustainable Stay at Work].

Objektives: Using qualitative-hermeneutical methods with a focus on biographical (risk-) constellations for conditions of success or failure of return to work - and therefore on the efficiency and sustainability of employment participation benefits - the study accompanies participants during a time span of 2 years after their vocational retraining on their way back into the first labor market.

Methods: The study applies a mixed method design which combines 30 episodical-narrative interviews of participating rehabilitants alongside with a questionnaire survey of a total of 214 participants and 19 interviews of scientists and vocational retraining experts.

Results: Overall approximately 80% of the participants of our sample successfully return to work within a period of 18 months.

[Return to Work from Vocational RetrainingA Long-Term Analysis of Individual Trajectories: Biografical and Structural Conditions of Success and Failure].

Background And Aims: The study aimed at the reconstruction of the trajectories of participants of a two-year vocational-retraining into new workplaces thereby identifying favourable and risky conditions of the return-to-work process. From a practical point of view the study identified special needs and necessities for after-care facilities.

Methods: A Mixed-Method-Design was used.

[Medical rehabilitation from a lifespan perspective].

Lifespan research investigates the development of individuals over the course of life. As medical rehabilitation deals with primary and secondary prophylaxis, treatment, and compensation of chronic illnesses, a lifespan perspective is needed for the classification and diagnosis of chronic disorders, the assessment of course modifying factors, the identification of vulnerable life periods and critical incidents, the implementation of preventive measures, the development of methods for the evaluation of prior treatments, the selection and prioritization of interventions, including specialized inpatient rehabilitation, the coordination of therapies and therapists, and for evaluations in social and forensic medicine. Due to the variety of individual risk constellations, illness courses and treatment situations across the lifespan, personalized medicine is especially important in the context of medical rehabilitation, which takes into consideration hindering and fostering factors alike.

Family caregiver burden in mental illnesses: The case of affective disorders and schizophrenia - a qualitative exploratory study.

Background: Caregivers of people with mental illnesses often experience a wide range of burdens. Although many studies have confirmed burdens among family caregivers of mentally ill relatives in general, specific knowledge regarding the concrete everyday hassle and existential sorrows from the caregiverś subjective reasoning perspective is lacking. Furthermore, there is little evidence on the possible different effects of affective disorders and schizophrenia on the quality of burden; this is also true with regard to the role of cultural traditions and lay beliefs.

[Which information relatives of patients with cancer are searching for? Are the findings helpful for coping and care?].

The question of how the relatives and friends of women with breast cancer and men with prostate cancer research illness-related subjects was examined by means of an online questionnaire. The relatives and friends use the internet primarily to inform themselves, but also to convey information further to the sick person. Often, they research for the patient who is not familiar with the medium.