“Can you go back to work?” Family physicians’ experiences with assessing patients’ functional ability to return to work

Objective To explore the challenges academic FPs face when assessing patients' functional ability to return to work; to produce a detailed account of FPs' experiences and views on workplace disability management; to describe which parts of the disability assessment and management process FPs would like to modify or relinquish; and to provide solutions to streamline the overall process of assessing disability. Design Qualitative phenomenologic study using in-depth interviews. Setting A family health team located in a large urban teaching hospital in Toronto, Ont. Participants Purposive sample of 6 FPs. Methods Participants were invited to participate in 1-hour, in-depth interviews. Themes were derived from qualitative analysis of the data using a phenomenologic approach. Main findings Four themes emerged from the interviews: the FP's role in filing a compensation claim; the complexity of the patient; the FP's lack of training in occupational health; and possible solutions to improve the process of assessing the functional ability of an injured worker. Conclusion As in other areas of medicine, the role of the FP is to restore health; optimize social, psychological, and functional capabilities; and minimize the negative effects of injury. Assessing functional abilities for return to work can be challenging, as FPs are trained to focus on assessing and treating symptoms rather than on determining occupational functioning. Functional assessment forms do not provide enough information for physicians and serve as a poor communication tool among the stakeholders involved with returning an injured worker to work.