Supervisors' responses to sickness certification for an episode of low back pain: employees' personal experiences

Abstract

Purpose. To understand how work supervisors respond to sickness certification for an episode of low back pain based on employees' reports of employer–employee interactions.

Method. Thematic analysis of semi-structured in-depth interviews with 16 employees who were currently or had recently been off work with an episode of low back pain.

Results. Two types of initial supervisor response were identified: See you later and Take your time and get it right. Both of these relied on the employee returning to work once they were able to do their normal work tasks. Three types of subsequent response were identified: Proactive, Apathetic and Negative. Only the proactive response included actions to encourage and assist the employee to return to the workplace.

Conclusions. The interactions described by participants suggest that employers and their representatives often postpone actioning to return to work interventions which potentially delays the rehabilitation of the employee.

Keywords:

• Low back pain
• return to work
• work supervisors
• sickness certification

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the participants who shared their experiences and enabled this research to be undertaken. They are also indebted to Denise Sandford from ACC who identified claimants fitting the eligibility criteria, and to the physiotherapists who assisted with participant recruitment.

Declaration of interest

The study was funded by University of Auckland and Accident Compensation Corporation doctoral scholarships.

Note

1. ACC applied experience rating from 1992 to 1999. Experience rating will be adopted again from April 2011.