Rehabilitation Success After Psychosomatic Rehabilitation as a Function of Symptomatic Load and Duration of Incapacity to Work

Abstract

Rehabilitation success is directly reflected in individual symptom reduction and indirectly in sociomedical benefits. The findings on the extension of measures to increase rehabilitation success are controversial. Treatment duration does not seem to be a sufficient predictor of rehabilitation success. Long periods of sick leave may contribute to chronification of mental illness. The study examined the relationship between the duration of sick leave before psychosomatic rehabilitation (less vs. more than 3 months) with different depression severity at the start of rehabilitation (below vs. above clinical relevance) and (un)indirect rehabilitation success. For this purpose, 1612 rehabilitants aged 18-64 years, 49% women, who completed psychosomatic rehabilitation at the Oberharz Rehabilitation Centre in 2016 were examined. Individual symptom reduction was mapped by the Reliable Change Index (consid-ered as a good estimator of true change) from pre/post test scores of the BDI-II. Periods of sick leave before rehabilitation and insurance/contribution periods one to four years after rehabilitation were taken from the accounts of Deutsche Rentenversicherung Braunschweig-Hannover. Multiple hierarchical regression, repeated measures 2-factorial ANCOVAs, planned contrasts, were calculated. Age, gender and rehabilitation duration were statistically controlled. A multiple hierarchical regression showed incremental variance clarification in symptom reduction for patients who were on sick leave for less than three months before rehabilitation (4%) and for those who started rehabilitation with clinically relevant depression (9%) with medium and large effect sizes, (respectively f2=0,22 and 0,73). Repeated-messures 2-factorial ANCOVAs showed, more contributions/contribution periods for patients with a short period of sick leave before rehabilitation in each year after rehabilitation, with small effect size (ηp 2=0,03 and 0,02). Patients starting rehabilitation with low depression severity showed more insurance but not more contribution periods in the same period (ηp 2=0,01). Duration of incapacity for work before rehabilitation appears to be an important pa-rameter for (un)direct rehabilitation success. Future studies should further differentiate and evaluate the effect of early admission within the first months of sick leave in psychosomatic rehabilitation measures.