Supported Employment and Preventing Early Disability (SEED)

NORCE Norwegian Research Centre AS

Status: Completed

Conditions: Unemployment

Treatments: Behavioral: Traditional Vocational Rehabilitation; Behavioral: Supported Employment

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02375074

227002/H20

Details and patient eligibility

About

The share of young workers falling into early work disability is an increasingly important problem in Norway. Early withdrawal or exclusion from the labor market leads to large individual and societal costs. The SEED-trial is a randomized controlled trial aiming to provide evidence-based knowledge about different approaches to prevent permanent disability and increase labor market participation in this important and vulnerable group. The trial includes young adults aged 18-30 years who are at risk of early work disability, and the participants will be randomly assigned to 1 of 2 interventions, both aimed at facilitating participation in working life:

1. Traditional Vocational Rehabilitation (TVR), offering training and preparation for the labor market in a sheltered environment
2. Supported Employment (SE), focusing on competitive employment in real-life settings without long-lasting preceding training

Both interventions are currently provided by The Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration (NAV). Supported Employment was introduced recently and is currently being implemented, while traditional vocational rehabilitation with sheltered employment has been around for years. However, no Norwegian controlled studies have been conducted on these practices in this population. The current study will therefore provide new knowledge of the effect of traditional as well as new and promising interventions to increase labor market participation and prevent early disability.

Full description

A detailed study protocol was published in BMC Public Health in 2016, and is openly available in fulltext at: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-016-3280-x

Enrollment: 96 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 29 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Not in employment or education
• Receiving temporary benefits
• Intended for the VR service "traineeships in sheltered businesses"

Exclusion criteria

• Not expressing interest in getting help to obtain competitive work
• Insufficient language skills to answer questionnaires in Norwegian

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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96 participants in 2 patient groups

Supported Employment

Experimental group

Description:

Supported Employment (SE), focusing on competitive employment in real-life settings without long-lasting preceding training.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Supported Employment

Traditional Vocational Rehabilitation

Experimental group

Description:

Traditional Vocational Rehabilitation (TVR), offering training and preparation for the labor market in a sheltered environment.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Traditional Vocational Rehabilitation