[Return-to-work-therapy in mentally ill employees: experiences with case-management activities by private health...

The development of a "return-to-work-therapy" [RTW-therapy] is described. It was initiated about 3 years ago by case-management teams of private health insurers in Germany to bridge the traditional gap between cure and rehabilitation of mainly depressive employees. The RTW-therapy aims at best-supported recovery of working capacity in patients after partial improvement of their depression. RWT-therapy is a mixture of curative and rehabilitative medicine and incorporates new aspects of case management, i.e. coaching. RWT-therapy tries to overcome (minimise) the depression-induced impairment of working activity mainly by supporting the patients empowerment to start working without a complete recovery of depressive symptoms. The rationale is that a supported recovery to work enhances the positive coping experiences of the patient, which hopefully leads to a further improvement of depressive symptoms. About 24.6 % of the patients managed to start working again after about 16 weeks of RTW-therapy following a continuous sick leave duration of about 63 weeks.