OTRCTJournal of occupational rehabilitation2025

Process Evaluation of Individual Placement and Support and Participatory Workplace Intervention to Increase the Sustainable Work Participation of People with Work Disabilities.

E Oude Geerdink, M A Huysmans, H van Kempen and 3 others

PMID 38918334

WHAT IT FOUND

Implementing these employment interventions in a municipal welfare setting was difficult.

Job coaches struggled to integrate with healthcare services for the IPS programme and rarely completed the structured steps required for the PWI programme.

Key findings

01IPS fidelity was rated as fair, with the main barrier being a lack of integration between employment services and healthcare services.

02For PWI, dose delivered was low, with none of the intervention steps carried out for more than half of the clients.

03PWI fidelity could not be assessed because the intervention materials were barely used by job coaches.

STILL TO COME

How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs

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What it does not show

Job coaches were assigned to interventions based on their preference, which may have increased their motivation to follow the protocol compared to mandatory assignment. The fidelity of PWI could not be assessed due to poor documentation by job coaches. COVID-19 restrictions influenced the way and extent to which interventions could be executed, particularly regarding face-to-face meetings and workplace coaching. The study took place in a specific municipal context in the Netherlands, which may limit generalizability to other healthcare or vocational systems.

Declared interests

The Medical Ethics Committee of the Vrije Universiteit Medical Centre approved the study. No specific funding sources or author conflicts of interest are declared in the provided text.

The easy way to misread this

Do not interpret the low PWI dose or IPS fidelity issues as evidence that these interventions are ineffective for people with work disabilities. This paper reports on implementation challenges in a specific municipal setting, not on clinical outcomes like employment rates or health improvements.

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