Effects of Motivational Interviewing for Long-term Sick Absence

Summary

Long-term sickness absence has considerable impact on social functioning, families involved, the employer, and society as a whole. Preventing long-term sickness absence and increase the likelihood of return to work (RTW) are critical concerns for industrialized countries across the world. Motivational factors contributing to RTW and maintenance of work participation are therefore of importance to explore in order to get the person back to work after long-term sick leave. Motivational interviewing (MI) is an empirically validated psychological approach that may be particularly useful in a RTW context. Even though MI has been widely studied and is considered a flexible intervention strategy in different domains, its effectiveness in improving RTW has not yet been studied.

The aim of this study is to evaluate whether MI provided by trained caseworkers at The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) to sick-listed users with unselected diagnoses facilitates RTW compared with follow-up as usual.

Conditions

• Sick Leave

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Treatment as usual (TAU-0)

The standard NAV procedure, which consists of a telephone call within 8 weeks to an employer who have employees on 100% sick leave, in addition to regular NAV conversations "on-demand" (not "fixed intervals") between the NAV caseworkers and the employees.

BEHAVIORAL

Structured talks (TAU-2)

Two structured talks (not including elements from motivational interviewing)

BEHAVIORAL

motivational interviewing (MI)

Two structured talks (must have a valid motivational interviewing content).

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Bergen

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Oslo

  collaborator OTHER

• National Center for Occupational Rehabilitation, Rauland

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Deakin University

  collaborator OTHER

• Norwegian University of Science and Technology

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Egil Andreas Fors, phd prof · Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

60 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2018-01-01

Primary Completion

2020-10-22

Completion

2022-07-01

Countries

• Norway

Study Locations