Education of the primary health care staff based on acceptance and commitment therapy is associated with reduced sick leave in a prospective controlled trial.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The use of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to cope with mental distress and pain issues has helped many patients in primary health care in Sweden. However, the effects of CBT to reduce sick leave has not been equally convincing. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an evolution of traditional CBT and we aimed to study if education based on ACT of the staff rather than the patients could reduce sick leave in primary health care.

Methods

This was a prospective trial in 6 primary health care centers in Kalmar (total amount of registered subjects of 28,930) in which the staff (physicians, nurses and therapists) received group-based education according to ACT during 2018 and 2019. The effects were compared with 5 similarly sized control health care centers in

SUBMITTER: Kadowaki A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8428055 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature