Return to Work after Injury or Illness
A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Occupational Safety and Health".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 March 2023) | Viewed by 3746
Special Issue Editors
2. Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Interests: chronic disease care; psychological resilience; health communication
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
In the coming years, we will be facing an ageing workforce. The older we become, the higher the risk of a chronic health condition that leads to functional disability and even absence from work. Relatively young employees are also not immune to this issue. Long-term work disability is already a significant problem and will presumably pose major difficulties in the future. Work disablement often leads to unemployment and exit from the labor market, causing financial strains and psychosocial problems among individuals, and high costs for the workplace and society. Return to work should be promoted, but it is difficult to achieve. There is research indicating that diagnostic factors only explain 10% of the variation in work disability. Hence, biological parameters alone are not sufficient to explain who will return to work. Instead, return to work is influenced by a complex interplay of biological, psychological, and social factors. This complexity calls for research into success factors of return to work, such as coordination between the stakeholders involved (social security and insurance, employers, occupational safety, public health), communication towards the work disabled, the motivation of the work disabled to return to work, early risk identification and workplace interventions, and/or interventions targeting specific-needs populations. Papers addressing these topics are invited to contribute to this Special Issue, in particular high-quality theoretical or empirical papers.
Prof. Dr. Emelien Lauwerier
Prof. Dr. Anja Van den Broeck
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- return to work
- chronic illness
- mental disorder
- bio-psycho-social approach
- workplace interventions
- coordinated approach
- behavioral approach
- motivation
- communication
- early risk
