Registered nurses’ work with sick leave questions by telephone in primary health care

Abstract

There is a need to educate and train registered nurses in social insurance medicine to provide high-quality nursing for patients on or at risk for sick leave.

To feel emotional concern: A qualitative interview study to explore telephone nurses’ experiences of difficult calls

“…Communication between telenurses and callers can be affected by, for example, stress, multitasking and understaffing (Röing & Holmström, ), demanding workloads, cognitive fatigue and having no opportunity for recovery during the work shift (Bjorkman, Engstrom, Olsson, & Wahlberg, ), and frequent callers who increase the workload (Holmström, Krantz, Karacagil, & Sundler, ). Furthermore, telenurses find it problematic to handle callers’ questions related to their sick leave entitlement (Lännerström, von Celsing, Holmström, & Wallman, ), which is related to them being gatekeepers and having to balance conflicting demands from patients, coworkers and the organization (Lännerström, Wallman, & Söderbäck, ). Threats to patient safety revealed by communication with telenurses can relate to the surrounding society, the structure of the telenursing service and its governing organization, to the telenurse, or to the caller (Röing, Rosenqvist, & Holmström, ).…”

The effect of a short educational intervention in social insurance medicine: A randomized controlled trial

“…Telephone nursing is performed by Registered Nurses (RNs) in many settings, one of which is in primary healthcare centres (PHCCs) in Sweden (Kaminsky, Röing, Björkman, & Holmström, ). Among the topics of telephone calls, are questions related to sick leave, referred to in this research as “sick leave questions” (SLQs) (Lännerström, Holmström, Svärdsudd, & Wallman, ; Lännerström, Wallman, & Söderbäck, ; Lännerström, von Celsing, Holmström, & Wallman, ; Müssener & Linderoth, ). Telephone nursing is known to be a difficult and demanding task that requires not only updated knowledge of evidence‐based medicine and nursing, the care system, regulations and local routines but also skills in communication to provide optimal care to the patient (Greenberg, ; Holmström & Höglund, ; Holmström, Gustafsson, Wesström, & Skoglund, ; Kaminsky, Rosenqvist, & Holmström, ; Kaminsky et al, ; Leppänen, ).…”

“…There are currently only a few studies on RNs’ engagement and participation with SLQs in telephone nursing and the problems and benefits connected to this task (Lännerström, Holmström, et al, ; Lännerström et al, ; Lännerström, Celsing, et al, ; Müssener & Linderoth, ). Problems of handling SLQs have been described as related to giving information about social insurance regulations and knowing where to refer patients and how to handle dissatisfied patients (Lännerström, Celsing, et al, ).…”

“…There are currently only a few studies on RNs’ engagement and participation with SLQs in telephone nursing and the problems and benefits connected to this task (Lännerström, Holmström, et al, ; Lännerström et al, ; Lännerström, Celsing, et al, ; Müssener & Linderoth, ). Problems of handling SLQs have been described as related to giving information about social insurance regulations and knowing where to refer patients and how to handle dissatisfied patients (Lännerström, Celsing, et al, ). There is extensive research showing that physicians and especially general practitioners experience work related to sickness certification as problematic (Arrelov et al, ; Carlsson, Lännerström, Wallman, & Holmström, ; Foley, Thorley, & Denny, ; Hussey, Hoddinott, Wilson, Dowell, & Barbour, ; Läkares sjukskrivningspraxis, ; Ljungquist et al, ; Money, Hussey, Thorley, Turner, & Agius, ).…”

Gaining role clarity in working with sick leave questions—Registered Nurses’ experiences of an educational intervention

“…Registered Nurses (RNs) are not commonly considered to have a role related to the work with sick leave in primary healthcare settings. However, recent research using data from one Swedish county indicates that RNs do have work tasks connected to sick leave as they handle telephone calls concerning sick leave questions (SLQs), that is questions related to the social insurance regulations and sickness certification (Lännerström, von Celsing, Holmström, & Wallman, ). Consequently, telephone calls are a channel for people’s SLQs, and the RN’s role is to handle those calls, hence, they take part in the sick leave process by handling calls in telephone nursing.…”