Exit from Work
The present study intends to contribute to the research field on health-related exit and reorientation processes and the associated coping with such a double-folded biographical challenge, means on coping with a vulnerable health and uncertain job-condition. The basic purpose of this study is to understand the biographical coping processes in the context of professional reorientation and to describe exit from work processes, as well as their conditions.
The aim is to comprehend the individual negotiation in the course of professional reorientation and to relate it with the illness coping. It is another dimension of this study to look at return to work phases and their supporting or obstructing factors.
The study focuses on three women and three men between the ages of 25 and 57 who were interviewed (episodically-narrative) at two different points in the survey period from 2013 to 2014: during their medical rehabilitation (t1) and again about a year later (t2). The overall characteristic of all cases is the initiated or already completed health-related occupational biographical disruption caused by a chronic musculoskeletal disease partly accompanied by psychosomatic issues. This study follows the methodological approach and research style of the Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss 2010).
As a result of this study, the complex risk constellations as well as the trajectory of a health-related exit from work are described, focusing on the diverse coping challenges of this biographical disruption. The developed model of a “Negotiation Arena of coping with the illness and professional reorientation" summarizes the negotiation process of professional reorientation taking into account the limited health. At the same time, the results of this study provide impulses for the further foundation of theoretical and application-oriented return to work approaches.
