PURPOSE:

Injured workers can experience a myriad of difficulties while attempting workplace reintegration and, in some cases, problems encountered result in workers being unable to take up employment opportunities and/or maintain employment gains. This project aimed to discover what injured workers report as being the reason for their not pursuing and/or leaving post-injury work opportunities.

METHODS:

Semi-structured interviews inquiring about participant's (N = 150) return-to-work experiences following an occupational injury resulting in an impairment that limited their ability to perform their past work.

RESULTS:

Findings indicate that although reasons cited for the loss of employment gains included physiological body function, the ability to perform work-related tasks and actions and personal factors, the most commonly referenced barriers by far were environmental in nature. Depending on where the worker was within the return-to-work process, the regularity with which each of the types of environmental factors was mentioned varied considerably.

CONCLUSIONS:

The finding that environmental factors are considered the most common stumbling blocks is positive in that these are arguably some of the most amenable to intervention.