Between unemployment and employment: experience of unemployed long-term pain sufferers

This study explored and analysed how patients experienced possibilities for, and barriers to, work return after participation in a multi-professional pain-rehabilitation program followed by a coached work-training program (CWT).

Eleven informants (8 women/3 men) with long-term musculoskeletal pain who had participated in the CWT program for 4-21 months (mean=11) comprised the study.

A qualitative emergent design was used. Data collected with interviews were analysed using the constant comparison method of grounded theory. Triangulation in researchers were used.

The analyses of the interviews resulted in the development of a three-category theoretical model, which was named "a way back to work". The main category "Experience of a way back to work" consisted of the informants' experience during the process between unemployment and employment. The category "Support" describes the help the informants received from various actors, and the category "Negative response" describes negative responses from the actors involved, which was an important barrier in the process between unemployment and employment.

Professional individualised support, participants feeling involved in their rehabilitation process, coaching at real workplaces and multi-professional team including health care personnel, were valuable during the process towards work.