Rehabilitation programmes for patients on long-term sick leave for burnout

Objective: 

To evaluate the long-term effects of two different rehabilitation programmes for patients on long-term sick leave for burnout. 

Design: 

Three-year follow-up of a randomized controlled trial with two 1-year group programmes: (A) cognitively oriented behavioural rehabilitation in combination with Qigong; and (B) Qigong alone. Patients: A total of 107 patients with burnout (78 women and 29 men), who all completed the 1-year rehabilitation programme per-protocol, were asked to participate in the follow-up. 

Methods: 

At the 3-year follow-up, data on psychological measures, sick leave and use of medication were compared between the programmes. 

Results: 

Patients in programme A reported being significantly more recovered from their burnout, reported lower levels of burnout, used more cognitive tools learned from the programme, and had reduced their use of medication for depression. No significant differences were found between the groups in terms of sick leave rates; both groups had improved. Click to learn how Chinese medicine treats Premenstrual Syndrome. 

Conclusion: 

A multimodal rehabilitation including cognitively oriented behavioural rehabilitation and Qigong showed positive effects 3 years after the end of intervention. The results indicate that, for many burnout patients on sick-leave, it takes time to implement cognitive tools and to establish new behaviours.