TY - JOUR A1 - Lukasczik, Matthias A1 - Wolf, Hans-Dieter A1 - Gerlich, Christian A1 - Küffner, Roland A1 - Vogel, Heiner A1 - Neuderth, Silke T1 - Addressing Work-Related Issues in Medical Rehabilitation: Revision of an Online Information Tool for Healthcare Professionals JF - Addressing Work-Related Issues in Medical Rehabilitation N2 - Background. Medical rehabilitation increasingly considers occupational issues as determinants of health and work ability. Information on work-related rehabilitation concepts should therefore be made available to healthcare professionals. Objective. To revise a website providing healthcare professionals in medical rehabilitation facilities with information on work-related concepts in terms of updating existing information and including new topics, based on recommendations from implementation research. Method. The modification process included a questionnaire survey of medical rehabilitation centers (); two workshops with experts from rehabilitation centers, health payers, and research institutions (); the selection of new topics and revision of existing text modules based on expert consensus; and an update of good practice descriptions of work-related measures. Results. Health payers’ requirements, workplace descriptions, and practical implementation aids were added as new topics. The database of good practice examples was extended to 63 descriptions. Information on introductory concepts was rewritten and supplemented by current data. Diagnostic tools were updated by including additional assessments. Conclusions. Recommendations from implementation research such as assessing user needs and including expert knowledge may serve as a useful starting point for the dissemination of information on work-related medical rehabilitation into practice. Web-based information tools such as the website presented here can be quickly adapted to current evidence and changes in medicolegal regulations. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/7621690 PB - Hindawi ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Neuderth, Silke A1 - Schwartz, Betje A1 - Gerlich, Christian A1 - Schuler, Michael A1 - Markus, Miriam A1 - Bethge, Matthias T1 - Work-related medical rehabilitation in patients with musculoskeletal disorders: the protocol of a propensity score matched effectiveness study (EVA-WMR, DRKS00009780) JF - BMC Public Health N2 - Background Musculoskeletal disorders are one of the most important causes of work disability. Various rehabilitation services and return-to-work programs have been developed in order to reduce sickness absence and increase sustainable return-to-work. As the effects of conventional medical rehabilitation programs on sickness absence duration were shown to be slight, work-related medical rehabilitation programs have been developed and tested. While such studies proved the efficacy of work-related medical rehabilitation compared with conventional medical rehabilitation in well-conducted randomized controlled trials, its effectiveness under real-life conditions has yet to be proved. Methods/Design The cohort study will be performed under real-life conditions with two parallel groups. Participants will receive either a conventional or a work-related medical rehabilitation program. Propensity score matching will be used to identify controls that are comparable to treated work-related medical rehabilitation patients. Over a period of three months, about 18,000 insured patients with permission to undergo a musculoskeletal rehabilitation program will be contacted. Of these, 15,000 will receive a conventional and 3,000 a work-related medical rehabilitation. We expect a participation rate of 40 % at baseline. Patients will be aged 18 to 65 years and have chronic musculoskeletal disorders, usually back pain. The control group will receive a conventional medical rehabilitation program without any explicit focus on work, work ability and return to work in diagnostics and therapy. The intervention group will receive a work-related medical rehabilitation program that in addition to common rehabilitation treatments contains 11 to 25 h of work-related treatment modules. Follow-up data will be assessed three and ten months after patients’ discharge from the rehabilitation center. Additionally, department characteristics will be assessed and administrative data records used. The primary outcomes are sick leave duration, stable return to work and subjective work ability. Secondary outcomes cover several dimensions of health, functioning and coping strategies. Discussion This study will determine the relative effectiveness of a complex, newly implemented work-related rehabilitation strategy for patients with musculoskeletal disorders. Trial registration German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS00009780, February 10, 2016). Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-3437-7 PB - BMC ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gerlich, Christian A1 - Schuler, Michael A1 - Jelitte, Matthias A1 - Neuderth, Silke A1 - Flentje, Michael A1 - Graefen, Markus A1 - Krüger, Alexander A1 - Mehnert, Anja A1 - Faller, Hermann T1 - Prostate cancer patients’ quality of life assessments across the primary treatment trajectory: true change or response shift? JF - Acta oncologica N2 - Background Self-report questionnaires are widely used to assess changes in quality of life (QoL) during the course of cancer treatment. However, comparing baseline scores to follow-up scores is only justified if patients’ internal measurement standards have not changed over time, that is, no response shift occurred. We aimed to examine response shift in terms of reconceptualization, reprioritization and recalibration among prostate cancer patients. Material and methods We included 402 newly diagnosed patients (mean age 65 years) and assessed QoL at the beginning of cancer treatment and three months later. QoL was measured with the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30 (EORTC QLQ-C30). We employed structural equation modeling testing measurement invariance between occasions to disentangle ‘true’ change and change in the measurement model (response shift). Results We found reprioritization effects for both the Physical Functioning and Role Functioning subscales of the EORTC QLQ-C30, indicating that both had gained importance for representing the latent construct of QoL at follow-up. These effects added to the worsening effect evident in the latent construct, thus rendering observed changes even more pronounced. In addition, we found recalibration effects for both the Emotional Functioning and Cognitive Functioning subscales indicating judgments becoming more lenient over time. These effects counteracted ‘true’ negative changes thus obscuring any substantial changes on the observed level. Conclusion Our results suggest that changes observed in some subscales of the EORTC QLQ-C30 should not be taken at face value as they may be affected by patients’ changed measurement standards. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3109/0284186X.2015.1136749 VL - 55 IS - 7 SP - 814 EP - 820 PB - Taylor&Francis Online ER -