Interventions to improve return to work in depressed people

The objective of this Cochrane review was to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing work disability in employees with depressive disorders.

The authors concluded that:

“A combination of a work‐directed intervention and a clinical intervention probably reduces the number of sickness absence days, but at the end of one year or longer follow‐up, this does not lead to more people in the intervention group being at work. The intervention may also reduce depressive symptoms and probably increases work functioning more than care as usual. Specific work‐directed interventions may not be more effective than usual work‐directed care alone. Psychological interventions may reduce the number of sickness absence days, compared with care as usual. Interventions to improve clinical care probably lead to lower sickness absence and lower levels of depression, compared with care as usual. There was no evidence of a difference in effect on sickness absence of one antidepressant medication compared to another. Further research is needed to assess which combination of work‐directed and clinical interventions works best.”

It is a useful read for practitioners and can be found here.