Background Common mental disorders are one of the leading causes for sickness absence and early retirement due to reduced health. Furthermore, a treatment gap for common mental disorders has been described worldwide. Within this study, psychotherapeutic consultation at work defined as a tailored, module-based and work-related psychotherapeutic intervention will be applied to improve mental health care. Methods This study comprises a randomised controlled multicentre trial with 1:1 allocation to an intervention and control group. In total, 520 employees with common mental disorders shall be recruited from companies being located around five study centres in Germany. Besides care as usual, the intervention group will receive up to 17 sessions of psychotherapy. The first session will include basics diagnostics and medical indication of treatment and the second session will include work-related diagnostics. Then, participants of the intervention group may receive work-related psychotherapeutic consultation for up to ten sessions. Further psychotherapeutic consultation during return to work for up to five sessions will be offered where appropriate. The control group will receive care as usual and the first intervention session of basic diagnostics and medical indication of treatment. After enrolment to the study, participants will be followed up after nine (first follow-up) and fifteen (second follow-up) months. Self-reported days of sickness absence within the last 6 months at the second follow-up will be used as the primary outcome and self-efficacy at the second follow-up as the secondary outcome. Furthermore, a cost-benefit assessment related to costs of common mental disorders for social insurances and companies will be performed. Discussion Psychotherapeutic consultation at work represents a low threshold care model aiming to overcome treatment gaps for employees with common mental disorders. If successfully implemented and evaluated, it might serve as a role model to the care of employees with common mental disorders and might be adopted in standard care in cooperation with sickness and pension insurances in Germany. Trial registration The friaa project was registered at the German Clinical Trial Register (DRKS) at 01.03.2021 (DRKS00023049): https://www.drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do?navigationId=trial.HTML&TRIAL_ID=DRKS00023049.

BackgroundWith nearly 30 % of the general population experiencing one mental disorder in 12 months, common mental disorders (CMDs) are highly prevalent in Germany and mainly affect the workforce. Therefore, the processes of successfully returning to work (RTW) and achieving a sustainable RTW (SRTW) are important not only for recovery but the prevention of negative consequences like job loss or disability retirement. While factors influencing and predicting the time until RTW are well-investigated in other countries, research on determinants of RTW and SRTW has received little attention in Germany. Consequently, this study aims to investigate the RTW and SRTW processes due to CMDs from the employees´ perspective in Germany.MethodsThis prospective cohort study uses a convergent parallel mixed methods design with a quantitative sample and qualitative sub-sample. Two hundred eighty-six participants of the quantitative study and a sub-sample of 32 participants of the qualitative study were included. The primary outcome of the quantitative study is the time until RTW and full RTW. The secondary outcome is the sustainability of RTW. The following measures will be used to cover work-, RTW- and health-related factors: working time, duration of sickness absences, functional ability, work ability, RTW self-efficacy, social support, work-privacy conflict, job satisfaction, job crafting and depressive symptoms. Quantitative and qualitative data will be integrated at the end.DiscussionThe paper provides an overview on study design, recruitment, sample characteristics and baseline findings of an 18 months mixed methods follow-up study in Germany. This study will provide evidence of (S)RTW processes and its influencing factors due to CMDs in Germany and therefore contribute to further improvement of its (S)RTW practices.Trial registrationGerman Clinical Trials Register (ID: DRKS00010903, July 28, 2017, retrospectively registered).

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A psychosomatic consultation for regional health care in the workplace – evaluation and recommendations Goal: The study’s goal was the qualitative evaluation of a new variant of the mental health intervention “psychosomatic consultation in the workplace” from the perspective of participating firms and individuals. Methods: The study data encompassed group discussions with workplace actors based on open-ended interview questions about their experiences with the intervention and narrative interviews with individual participants. This material was augmented by problem-oriented expert interviews with psychotherapists and company medical officers and by descriptive statistics of the individuals participating in the consultation. Results: All the firms implemented the consultation in response to perceived high rates of sick leave caused by mental health problems and due to a lack of confidence in how to deal with the employees concerned. The advantages of the consultation are seen to lie in its easily accessible and timely provision of professional assistance (psychoeducation, short interventions, coaching in difficult life situations and referral to other parts of the medical system) and in its flexibility in implementation. The consultation is adaptable to firms’ varying expectations and needs and increases the confidence of workplace actors (especially top management, personnel management, company medical officers and employee representatives) in dealing with mental health problems. Conclusions: The consultation proved to be a flexible, practicable and beneficial part of primary, secondary and tertiary prevention measures in the workplace. It can have positive effects on the preventive behaviour of individual participants. It is recommended that such programmes should be coupled with additional health-promotion services inside and outside the company in the future. Employees should be able to choose between using the consultation either anonymously or non-anonymously in consultation with a trusted colleague or company medical officer. Some form of (anonymous) feedback to company management on the findings of the consultation in relation to systemic sources of psychological distress is also recommended for the purpose of introducing suitable preventive measures. Keywords: psychosomatic consultation in the workplace (PSIB) – mental health – intervention – occupational medicine