Dear Colleagues,

The stresses and strains of working life affect people negatively and result in various mental health complaints, even prior to sick-listing. People with these complaints often consult primary healthcare long before they even contemplate sick leave. Since these patients are at risk of disability and long-term sick leave, it is of immense value to identify them early to determine the need for preventive steps. Both the individual and society can gain a lot from the prevention of absence, but surprisingly enough, there are few established methods in primary healthcare to identify, treat, and support people to go on working and avoid going on sick leave. Involving the workplace and the employer to promote return to work after sick-listing has been found to be essential; therefore, collaboration between primary healthcare and the workplace is urgently needed.

The aim of this Special Issue is to present research on new methods to identify, treat, and support patients with work-related mental ill health early to avoid long-term complaints and sick leave in a primary healthcare context. It also aims at presenting research on methods that involve the workplace to promote an early RTW. 

We welcome research in this area with a variety of study designs, using a quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods design:

• Feasibility studies/pilot studies to examine the efficacy and implementation of new methods to identify, treat, and support patients with work-related mental ill health early to avoid long-term complaints and sick leave and promote return to work;
• Randomized controlled trial/cohort studies to evaluate if interventions can:
  • Reduce/change mental complaints or symptoms;
  • Prevent or reduce/change sickness absence;
  • Promote return to work;
• Evaluation studies to examine interventions from both the patients’ and healthcare professionals’ perspective, and from the perspectives of organizational level.

Prof. Dr. Kristina Holmgren
Dr. Jenny Hultqvist
Guest Editors

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• work-related health
• mental ill health
• primary healthcare
• early identification
• prevention
• sustainable work
• sick leave
• rehabilitation
• return to work