P11
International Classification of Functioning (ICF) in VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION (VR): AN INSTRUMENT FOR ASSESSING INDIVIDUALS´ FUNCTION AND INTERVENTION NEEDS AS WELL AS A MEASUREMENT TOOL AND ITS ABILITY TO PREDICT RETURN TO WORK (RTW)
J. Waagfjord, VIRK Vocational Rehabilitation Fund, Reykjavik, Iceland
Background
The VIRK VR Fund finances all VR in Iceland. VIRK uses the ICF classification system to map out individuals’ functions, strengths, and hindrances for the RTW process.
Aims
- Describe how VIRK has integrated the ICF system into the initial information and evaluation process for a broad range of VR professionals, to aid in goal setting and decision- making, and to assign intervention/resource needs in the RTW process.
- To investigate if the Work Rehabilitation Questionnaire (WORQ) can be used as a measurement tool to demonstrate changes in health status.
- Evaluate the ability of selected functions to predict RTW and length of VR.
Methods
Participants completed VR at VIRK over 5 years (2018-2023), a total of 9,300 individuals. The study is a pretest-post-design where self-reported measures on the WORQ instruments and EQ5D-5L are collected at the beginning and end of VR. In addition, VR applicants answer a detailed, mandatory general questionnaire that covers various health-related and social topics in the individuals’ lives before entering VR services, which will be used as covariates and/or moderators in statistical models on VR results.
Result
Since data analysis is still ongoing, there are no clear results yet. However, preliminary results indicate that WORQ instruments harmonize with the EQ5D-5L instrument in the pre-post-test period. Additionally, subjects’ health seems to improve during rehabilitation, resulting in a lower ICF disability score at the end of VR.
Conclusions
The results of this research will further facilitate the development and improvement of our system and hopefully be helpful to others.
