Workers’ views on involving significant others in occupational health care: a focus group study among workers with a chronic disease

Abstract

Purpose

To explore workers’ views and considerations on involving their significant others (SOs) in occupational health care.

Methods

Four focus group interviews in the Netherlands, with 21 workers who had visited an occupational health physician (OHP) due to work absence caused by a chronic disease. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis.

Results

We distinguished four main themes: (i) attitudes towards involving SOs, (ii) preferences on how to involve SOs, (iii) benefits of involving SOs, and (iv) concerns with regard to involving SOs. Workers expressed both positive and critical opinions about involving SOs in occupational health care. Benefits mentioned included provision of emotional and informational support by SOs before, during, and after consultations. According to workers, support from SOs can be enhanced by informing SOs about re-integration plans and involving them in decision making. However, workers were concerned about overburdening SOs, and receiving unwanted support from them.

Conclusions

According to interviewed workers, engagement of SOs in occupational health care can help workers with a chronic disease in their recovery and return to work. However, they felt it is important to take SO characteristics and the worker’s circumstances and preferences into account, and to balance the potential benefits and drawbacks of involving SOs.

Implications for rehabilitation

• This study suggests that the worker’s re-integration process could benefit from informing significant others about the return to work plans, involving them in decision-making, and explicitly discussing how the significant other can support the worker.

• Occupational health physicians have an important role in informing workers about the possibility and potential benefits of involving their significant others in the re-integration process.

• The involvement of a significant other in the re-integration process needs to be tailored to the specific situation of the individual worker, taking into account the preferences of both the worker and significant other.

• Findings suggest that it is important that occupational health physicians, workers and significant others are not only aware of the possible benefits of significant other involvement, but also of potential drawbacks such as interference during consultations, overburdening significant others, and significant others providing unwanted support.

Keywords:

• Occupational health care
• return to work
• chronic disease
• significant others
• qualitative research

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Margriet van Kampenhout for her contribution to the data collection. We would also like to thank the 15 occupational health physicians of HumanTotalCare and the Patient panel of the Netherlands Patients Federation for their contribution to the recruitment of participants. Finally, the authors thank all workers who participated in this study.

Ethical approval

The Medical Ethics Review Committee of the University Medical Center Groningen confirmed that official approval by this committee was not required, as the Medical Research Involving Human Subjects Act (WMO) did not apply to this study (METc 2017/486, M17.218841).

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all participants in the study.

Author Contributions

NS, HdV, SvdBV, SB and MH contributed to the conception and design of the study. NS and HdV developed the interview guide and invitation letter; SvdBV, SB and MH reviewed the content. NS and HdV performed the data collection; NS and AB performed the data analyses; and NS drafted the manuscript. All authors have contributed to critical revision of the main intellectual content of the manuscript, and have approved the final version.

Disclosure statement

Drs. Snippen, Dr. de Vries, and Prof. dr. Brouwer received grants from Instituut Gak to conduct the study; Drs. Bosma, Prof. dr. van der Burg-Vermeulen and Prof. dr. Hagedoorn have nothing to disclose.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to identifying information, but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Instituut Gak, under Grant 2016755. The funder had no role in the design of the study, the collection and interpretation of the data, or in the writing of the manuscript.