Background: Psychiatric vocational rehabilitation (PVR) has provided vocational training and support to many individuals with mental illness. Meanwhile, a question about whether person-related factors have an impact on PVR outcomes has emerged, and the answer to the question may help in providing clients with more appropriate support to meet their needs.
Objectives: To identify variables that are related to employment outcomes after receiving PVR services.
Search strategy: Searches were conducted on Medline, Psychinfo, Pubmed, and CINAHL using various keywords related to vocational rehabilitation, such as supported employment. The authors also conducted a reference check for studies.
Selection criteria: Included studies contained only participants with severe mental illness who received vocational services. In addition, the studies must have used multivariate analysis of longitudinal data to analyze employment outcomes at least 6 months after program participation and included the analysis of at least three predictors.
Data collection and analysis: Two authors coded the information, and three authors measured the quality of studies using a checklist with a scale of 0 to 10. Data analysis was conducted for specific predictors within outcome domains as well as overall regardless of outcome domain.
Main results: A total of eight studies presented in 16 articles were included in the review. Various predictors were identified such as demographic factors, psychiatric illness factors, work performance, social functioning, etc. Demographic factors were found to rarely relate to PVR outcomes, and measurement of severe psychiatric symptoms presented mixed findings. On the other hand, a significant positive relationship was found between employment outcomes and work performance measured during participation in PVR. Social functioning and employment outcomes were also found to have a significant positive relationship. In the analysis using three factors (work history, PVR work performance, and severity of symptoms), work history was not found significant, but PVR work performance was found more significantly related to employment outcomes.
Conclusions: The major finding of this review was contrary to the results of previous reviews in that this review found work performance and social functioning measured during PVR participation as having a more significant relationship with employment outcomes than past functioning, such as work history. More research is needed for further clarification of person-related predictors of employment outcomes. |
