Short summary

Sick leave due to minor psychiatric illnesses has huge individual costs, and is a heavy economic burden to society. Treatment is currently, according to OECD, disintegrated, and not optimal. This project tests a treatment intervention to individuals with depression, anxiety, stress, burn-out or adjustment disorder, consisting of both psychotherapy delivered by mental health care professionals and of occupational consultation, from the same team of professionals.

Rationale

Sick leave due to minor psychiatric illnesses is usually treated in the primary sector, with contacts to a GP, the municipal occupational center, and to selected individuals a psychotherapist. These three interventions are rarely integrated, and do not intervene according to any common intervention strategy, with the risk that strategies might be contradictory, and hence the different treatments or interventions an individual is subjected to, might be counteracting. Thus symptoms of the individual might worsen or not regress naturally. This projects test the hypothesis that an integration of the mental health care intervention and the occupational consultation ensures a diminishing of time of return to work, and secondarily a lower level of symptoms.

Description of the cohort

Our cohort will consist of 1536 individuals either with; depression, anxiety, stress, burn-out or adjustment disorder. They will be recruited from municipal occupational centers, four to eight weeks after initiation of sick leave from employment or vacancy.

Data and biological material

As a part of diagnostic evaluation, we will collect the medical report from the participants GP, and perform a diagnostic evaluation, using Minimal Neuropsychiatric Interview, as well as other diagnostic tools and psychometric rating scales.

No biological material will be collected, nor para-clinical tests.