Preventing Job Loss for People with Multiple Sclerosis
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Job Retention Vocational Rehabilitation Intervention for People with Multiple Sclerosis
IRAS ID
272041
Contact name
Roshan Das Nair
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Nottingham
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 1 days
Research summary
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is the most common chronic neurological condition affecting young adults. Women are two times more likely to develop MS than men, and currently MS affects over 130,000 people in the UK. People are usually diagnosed between 20 to 40 years of age, the prime working years of an adult.
The range of physical, cognitive and psychological problems that people with MS can present increases the personal and professional challenges of people with MS. In fact, there is a direct relationship between years with MS and unemployment. Usually, fewer than 50% of people with MS remain at work after 10 years of diagnosis, and decreasing to 20-40% after 15 years. Apart from the number of people that become unemployed after a diagnosis of MS, there is also a large proportion of people that need to reduce their working hours because of MS. These figures show how people with MS leave the workplace prematurely. The early onset of the condition, its long duration and negative impact on employment makes MS the most costly neurological condition.
Vocational rehabilitation aims to help people with long-term conditions, like MS, to remain at work, return to work, or retire from work at an appropriate time. Vocational rehabilitation could help people with MS to make informed decisions about their employment and support them with employment.
This study aims to implement a three-month job retention Vocational Rehabilitation intervention to support employed people with MS to remain at work for as long as they wish. The intervention will involve understanding the professional situation of people with MS and deliver a tailor intervention addressing the issues they present at work.
REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/EM/0113
Date of REC Opinion
21 May 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion