Journal of occupational rehabilitation
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Purpose To assess employees' experiences of the workers' compensation claim process for psychological trauma, stress or a mental health condition sustained during the course of work in the police and emergency services sector. Methods 14,868 employees (69.4% male, response rate = 22%) from around Australia participated in Answering the Call: the Beyond Blue National Mental Health and Wellbeing Study of Police and Emergency Services, and were asked questions regarding their workers' compensation experiences for mental health reasons. Results 14% of all employees in police and emergency services organisations had made a workers' compensation claim for mental health reasons. ⋯ Employees with poor overall support from their managers and those who perceived negative stigma about mental health in their workplace were more likely to report poor experiences. Conclusions The workers' compensation process is perceived negatively by most police and emergency services employees who have experience with it, and a majority found that it negatively impacted on their recovery. Ways to reform the system to better support employees experiencing significant functional impairments related to mental health issues should be urgently considered.
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Purpose To systematically assess the measurement properties and the quality of the evidence for measures of inclusion or exclusion at work. Methods Comprehensive searches of five electronic databases were conducted up to February 2019. Eligible studies aimed to develop a measure of workplace inclusion or exclusion or assessed at least one measurement property. ⋯ Most workplace inclusion instruments were not examined for some form of validity or reliability and evidence for responsiveness was absent. The quality of the evidence for content validity was low for 30% of studies and very low for 70% of studies. Conclusion Future research should focus on comprehensive evaluations of the psychometric properties of existing measures, with an emphasis on content validity, measurement error, reliability and responsiveness.
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Observational Study
The Association Between Fault Attribution and Work Participation After Road Traffic Injury: A Registry-Based Observational Study.
Purpose To characterise associations between fault attribution and work participation and capacity after road traffic injury. Methods People aged 15-65 years, working pre-injury, without serious brain injury, who survived to 12 months after road traffic injury were included from two Victorian trauma registries (n = 2942). Fault profiles from linked compensation claims were defined as no other at fault, another at fault, denied another at fault, claimed another at fault, and unknown. ⋯ Similarly, people had higher odds of work capacity limitations if another was at fault (12m: AOR = 1.49, 95% CI 1.24, 1.80; 24m: 1.63, 95% CI 1.35, 1.97) or was claimed to be at fault (12m: AOR = 1.54, 95% CI 1.16, 2.05; 24m: AOR = 1.80, 95% CI 1.34, 2.41), and lower odds if they denied another was at fault (6m: AOR = 0.67, 95% CI 0.48, 0.95), compared to cases with no other at fault. Conclusion Targeted interventions are needed to support work participation in people at risk of poor RTW post-injury. While interventions targeting fault and justice-related attributions are currently lacking, these may be beneficial for people who believe that another caused their injury.
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Purpose Work transitions among breast cancer survivors remain an underexplored area. We aimed to examine prevalence and determinants of changes in work status, and the effect of these changes on quality of life of breast cancer survivors. Methods A cross-sectional study of 410 female breast cancer survivors randomly drawn from a larger study sample pool (n = 2644), members of "Leumit" healthcare fund, who were diagnosed with primary nonmetastatic invasive breast cancer in the years 2002-2012. ⋯ In multivariable analyses, work transition between diagnosis and time of the survey was positively associated with being immigrant compared to native-born Israeli (odds ratio (OR) 4.65; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.91-11.37; P = .001), and inversely with education level of college or over compared to high school or less (OR 0.27; 95% CI 0.09-0.86; P = .026). Conclusions Breast cancer survivors with characteristics pointing at underprivileged social circumstances more often experienced changes in work status after surviving breast cancer, irrespective of diagnosis, comorbidity or treatment. Breast cancer patients with immigrant status and/or lower educational attainment need more support to be able to keep their job.