What Persons with Chronic Health Conditions Need to Maintain or Return to Work-Results of an Online-Survey in Seven European Countries.

Chronic health conditions represent the major share of the disease burden in Europe and have a significant impact on work. This study aims to: (1) identify factors that have a negative or positive impact on the work lives of persons with chronic health conditions; (2) explore the needs of these persons to maintain a job or return to work and (3) compare these results with respect to these persons' occupational status. An online survey was performed in seven European countries. Open-ended survey questions were analyzed using qualitative methods. In total, 487 participants with six chronic health conditions participated. The majority of participants named work-related aspects (such as career development, stress at the workplace, work structure and schedule as well as workload), support of others and attitudes of others as being the factors positively and negatively impact their work lives the most. Our study shed light on the importance of changing the attitudes of supervisors and co-workers to counteract stigmatization of persons with chronic health conditions in the workplace. In conclusion, this study provides a basis for developing new strategies of integration and reintegration at work for persons with chronic health conditions in European countries.

Evaluation of competencies in the field of vocational rehabilitation and the employment of persons with disabilities.

For decades, employment of a person with disabilities has been considered a key indicator of the success of vocational rehabilitation. There is a link between the quality of vocational rehabilitation and a better quality of life for service users; these services have a significant impact on efficiency in the field of work. Very few authors have researched the qualification and skills of rehabilitation experts essential for successfully carrying out their professional activities. The objective of the present study was to investigate the perceived importance attached to the competencies of vocational rehabilitation professionals and the frequency of their application at work in three different countries, which was conducted using a questionnaire that was prepared on the basis of a questionnaire designed by Australian researchers. Basic competencies comprise four sets: vocational counselling, professional practice, personal counselling and rehabilitation case management. Special competencies are composed of two sets: workplace disability case management and workplace intervention and programme management. The questionnaire was completed by 131 respondents, of whom 61 were from Slovenia, 34 were from Austria and 36 were from the UK. t-Tests for two independent samples (sex), analysis of variance (type of education, country) and Pearson's correlation coefficient were used to compare the perception of basic and special competencies. The respondents perceived personal counselling, vocational counselling and management of rehabilitation cases as being the most important, whereas the least importance was assigned to interventions. In practice, the respondents used personal counselling most frequently and very few interventions.