Eine psychosomatische Sprechstunde für die regionale betriebsnahe Versorgung

Abstract

A psychosomatic consultation for regional health care in the workplace – evaluation and recommendations Goal: The study’s goal was the qualitative evaluation of a new variant of the mental health intervention “psychosomatic consultation in the workplace” from the perspective of participating firms and individuals. Methods: The study data encompassed group discussions with workplace actors based on open-ended interview questions about their experiences with the intervention and narrative interviews with individual participants. This material was augmented by problem-oriented expert interviews with psychotherapists and company medical officers and by descriptive statistics of the individuals participating in the consultation. Results: All the firms implemented the consultation in response to perceived high rates of sick leave caused by mental health problems and due to a lack of confidence in how to deal with the employees concerned. The advantages of the consultation are seen to lie in its easily accessible and timely provision of professional assistance (psychoeducation, short interventions, coaching in difficult life situations and referral to other parts of the medical system) and in its flexibility in implementation. The consultation is adaptable to firms’ varying expectations and needs and increases the confidence of workplace actors (especially top management, personnel management, company medical officers and employee representatives) in dealing with mental health problems. Conclusions: The consultation proved to be a flexible, practicable and beneficial part of primary, secondary and tertiary prevention measures in the workplace. It can have positive effects on the preventive behaviour of individual participants. It is recommended that such programmes should be coupled with additional health-promotion services inside and outside the company in the future. Employees should be able to choose between using the consultation either anonymously or non-anonymously in consultation with a trusted colleague or company medical officer. Some form of (anonymous) feedback to company management on the findings of the consultation in relation to systemic sources of psychological distress is also recommended for the purpose of introducing suitable preventive measures. Keywords: psychosomatic consultation in the workplace (PSIB) – mental health – intervention – occupational medicine