Bridging health care and the workplace: Formulation of a return-to-work intervention for breast cancer patients using an intervention mapping approach

Abstract

An increasing number of breast cancer (BC) survivors of working age require return to work (RTW) support. Previous research indicated that effective RTW interventions start early, are participatory and contain adjuvant occupational therapy (OT). This paper aims at developing an OT oriented RTW intervention to be embedded as usual care with the objective to bridge the gap between health care and workplace. The intervention mapping (IM) protocol was followed to develop a RTW intervention by combining evidence regarding RTW in BC patients with insights regarding OT and RTW. Four development steps were taken, ranging from needs assessment to the development of intervention components and materials. A five-phased RTW intervention is proposed that is guided by an occupational therapist available at the hospital. Characteristics are: engaging all stakeholders, goal-setting, progressively developing tailored actions, continuous evaluations and adjustments of goals and actions. Using IM enables to set up a RTW oriented intervention that fits seamlessly to OT interventions, in a tailor-made sense. This unique intervention forms a bridge between individual BC patient needs, the input of stakeholders at the hospital and those at the workplace. A feasibility study and process evaluation (funded by Kom Op Tegen Kanker) is enrolled from February 2015 till October 2017 at Jessa Ziekenhuis in Hasselt (Be). Preliminary results of this study will be presented.