Interventions to enhance return-to-work for cancer patients

de Boer AGEM, Taskila T, Tamminga SJ, Frings-Dresen MHW, Feuerstein M, Verbeek JH

Published Online:

March 16, 2011

Each year cancer survival rates are going up and the number of cancer survivors is rising sharply. Many survivors are doing well, although cancer survivors can continue to experience long-lasting problems such as fatigue, pain, and depression which may become chronic. These long-term effects can clearly cause problems with work participation of cancer survivors. Therefore, cancer is a significant cause of absence from work, unemployment and early retirement. Individuals, their families and society at large all carry part of the burden.

This review evaluated the effects of interventions aimed at enhancing return-to-work in cancer patients. It included 18 studies involving 1652 participants. Four types of interventions were found: psychological interventions, interventions aimed at physical functioning, medical interventions, and multidisciplinary interventions which incorporated physical, psychological and vocational components. No vocational interventions aimed at work-related issues were retrieved. Results suggest that multidisciplinary interventions involving physical, psychological and vocational components led to higher return-to-work rates of cancer patients than care as usual, while quality of life was similar.

Abstract (click to read)

Background:

Cancer survivors are 1.4 times more likely to be unemployed than healthy people. It is therefore important to provide cancer patients with programmes to support the return-to-work process.

Objectives:

To evaluate the effectiveness of interventions aimed at enhancing return-to-work in cancer patients.

Search strategy:

We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL, in The Cochrane Library Issue 2, 2010), MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, OSH-ROM, PsycINFO, DARE, ClinicalTrials.gov, Trialregister.nl and Controlled-trials.com to February 2010, reference lists of included articles and selected reviews, and contacted authors of relevant articles.

Selection criteria:

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and controlled before-after studies (CBAs) of the effectiveness of psychological, vocational, physical, medical or multidisciplinary interventions enhancing return-to-work in cancer patients. The primary outcome was return-to-work measured as either return-to-work rate or sick leave duration. Secondary outcome was quality of life.

Data collection and analysis:

Two authors independently selected trials, assessed the risk of bias and extracted data. We pooled studies with sufficient data, judged to be clinically homogeneous in different comparisons. We assessed the overall quality of the evidence for each comparison using the GRADE approach.

Main results:

Fourteen articles reporting 14 RCTs and 4 CBAs were included. These studies involved a total of 1652 participants. Results indicated low quality evidence of similar return-to-work rates for psychological interventions compared to care as usual (odds ratio (OR) = 2.32, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.94 to 5.71). No vocational interventions were retrieved. Very low evidence suggested that physical training was not more effective than care as usual on improving return-to-work (OR = 1.20, 95% CI 0.32 to 4.54). Eight RCTs on medical interventions showed low quality evidence that functioning conserving approaches had similar return-to-work rates as more radical treatments (OR = 1.53, 95% CI 0.95 to 2.45). Moderate quality evidence showed multidisciplinary interventions involving physical, psychological and vocational components led to higher return-to-work rates than care as usual (OR = 1.87, 95% CI 1.07 to 3.27). No differences in the effect of psychological, physical, medical or multidisciplinary interventions compared to care as usual were found on quality of life outcomes.

Authors' conclusions:

Moderate quality evidence showed that employed patients with cancer experience return-to-work benefits from multidisciplinary interventions compared to care as usual. More high quality RCTs aimed at enhancing return-to-work in cancer patients are needed.

This record should be cited as:

de Boer AGEM, Taskila T, Tamminga SJ, Frings-Dresen MHW, Feuerstein M, Verbeek JH. Interventions to enhance return-to-work for cancer patients. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2011, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD007569. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD007569.pub2

Assessed as up to date:

February 1, 2010

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Primary Review Group:

Occupational Safety and Health Group

Cochrane Summaries^beta

Independent high-quality evidence for health care decision making

Interventions to enhance return-to-work for cancer patients

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