Work ability assessment of employees on long term sick leave in insurance medicine

Long-term sick leave generates high financial costs for society and causes personal suffering to patients and their families; however, crucial knowledge about the factors associated with long-term sick leave is still missing. This thesis is focused on factors relevant to the work ability assessment of employees on sick leave for at least 18 months.
The main objective of this thesis is to contribute to the improvement of the work ability assessment of employees on long-term sick leave by insurance physicians. For this purpose, knowledge about factors associated with long-term sick leave was gathered. The generated knowledge about factors related to long-term sick leave was used to develop a tool aimed to improve the quality of work ability assessments by insurance physicians of employees on long-term sick leave. The results of a nationwide implementation study of the newly developed "Checklist to assess factors relevant to work ability assessments of employees on long-term sick leave" are described. Recommendations for the practice of insurance physicians, for educational programs and for organisation's policy makers are given.