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Objectives: A Workers' Health Surveillance (WHS) program is an occupational health strategy used to detect and address the health of individual workers to improve their ability to work. This study aims to investigate the feasibility and acceptability of a new job-specific WHS for hospital physicians., Material and Methods: All hospital physicians of the general surgery, radiotherapy and obstetrics and gynecology departments from 1 academic hospital were invited to participate in the WHS by the in-company occupational health service. An occupational physician and a medical assistant were trained to use the protocol. Feasibility was operationalized as the received and delivered dose, observed success factors and potential obstacles. Acceptability was assessed by asking whether the WHS was desirable and feasible for future use and by estimating the effects on health and work ability. Written questions and semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participating physicians, 5 department managers and the 2 occupational health professionals involved in the study., Results: One-third of the hospital physicians (34%) participated in every part of the WHS. The delivered dose was 77/84 (92%). Almost all hospital physicians who received recommendations expected to adhere to this advice. The study participants appreciated the organization of the WHS. This WHS was positively graded (8 out of 10 max) in terms of acceptability. Positive effects of the WHS on health, work functioning and long-term work ability were perceived by 2/3 of the physicians., Conclusions: The new job-specific WHS for hospital physicians showed good feasibility and acceptability among participating hospital physicians, occupational health professionals and medical managers., (This work is available in Open Access model and licensed under a CC BY-NC 3.0 PL license.)

Objective: This study i) describes the number of police personnel with PTSD who are working and those who are on sick leave before and after an out-patient-clinic treatment program and ii) examines which factors are related to return to work., Participants: Police personnel treated for PTSD (n=121)., Methods: In this retrospective study all police officers had an intake interview before and an outtake interview following a 16-week treatment for PTSD. Information about several personal characteristics, PTSD complaints, and work related factors were gathered. A t-test and chi-square test were used to evaluate differences between working police personnel and police personnel on sick leave at intake and outtake. Binary logistic regression was used to test whether the intake data were related to returning to work at outtake., Results: At the start of the treatment half of the police personnel were on sick leave (n=59) and at outtake 48 participants who were not working at intake had returned to work. None of the variables at intake contributed significantly to return to work at outtake., Conclusion: The majority of police officers returned to work after the treatment program. We recommend that attention be paid to successful return to work as part of the treatment program, therefore the occupational health professional and employer should be involved.

Purpose: To determine whether certain subgroups of fire fighters are prone to work-related diminished health requirements., Methods: The health requirements for fire-fighting were tested in a workers' health surveillance (WHS) setting. These health requirements included psychological, physical and sense-related components as well as cardiovascular risk factors. The odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) for the presence of the diminished health requirements were calculated for the subgroups of gender, professionalism and age., Results: The prevalence of diminished psychological requirements was equivalent among the subgroups, and no significant high-risk group was identified. As compared to men fire fighters, women fire fighters were more likely to have diminished physical requirements (OR 28.5; 95% CI 12.1-66.9) and less likely to have cardiovascular risk factors (OR 0.3; 0.1-0.5). As compared to volunteer fire fighters, professionals were less likely to have diminished physical requirements (OR 0.5; 0.3-0.9), but professionals had a higher prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors with an odds ratio of 1.9 (1.1-3.2). As compared to the youngest fire fighters, the oldest fire fighters were more likely to have diminished sense-related requirements (OR 7.1; 3.4-15.2); a similar comparison could be made between oldest and middle-aged fire fighters (OR 5.1; 2.5-10.5). In addition, the oldest fire fighters were more likely to have cardiovascular risk factors when compared to the youngest (OR 4.4; 1.7-11.1) and to the middle-aged fire fighters (OR 3.1; 1.2-7.9)., Conclusions: Subgroups (gender, professionalism and age) of fire fighters are prone to at least one specific work-related diminished health requirement. Therefore, parts of the WHS could be applied with more attention to these high-risk groups.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to study the impact of chronic diseases on work ability in different age groups of Dutch firefighters., Methods: Firefighters filled out a questionnaire about the presence of nine types of chronic diseases and rated their current work ability (0 unable to 10 best ever). The differences in work ability in firefighters in total and in four age groups with and without chronic diseases were calculated with a Fisher's exact test., Results: Of 276 firefighters 23% reported having a chronic disease, with the rate varying among the age groups between 18 and 41%. Median work ability was 8, varying between 7 and 8 in the age groups. No significant difference was found in work ability for firefighters with and without chronic diseases, independent of the age groups., Conclusions: Having a chronic disease is not associated with a significantly lower self-reported work ability estimate in firefighters.