[Studies on the step-wise return to work following prolonged illness (author's transl)]

This study permits analytical statements on the possibility of taking up work by progressive steps (increasing working hours 4-6-8 hrs), which had been initiated in 1971. Previous (publications had confined to purely descriptive statements (2,3,4). Summarising, the following findings are essential: Premature retirement is less frequent. Resettlement in employment is achieved more smoothly, if not in all instances earlier (in relation to the point of time when full-day working is resumed). The improved psycho-emotional situation created by this mode of resettlement is rather clearly felt by the clients, and is stated to have been an aid of decisive value. It was found that there is too little awareness of this possibility of step-wise return to work after prolonged incapacity for work. More factual information needs above all be disseminated to institutions at enterprise level (company doctors, personnel departments, members of the personnel and works councils).