Abstract Mental health issues are highly prevalent among precarious workers, often leading to prolonged sickness absence and unemployment. A worker’s perceptions and attitudes about return-to-work are important determinants of work resumption and can be categorized into three modes: an expectant, an ambivalent-uncertain, and an active return-to-work mode. To support professionals in identifying these modes, we developed the REturn-to-work MODe Evaluation (REMODE) tool. This study evaluated REMODE’s inter-rater agreement, inter-item consistency, content validity, and usability. In a vignette study, 71 occupational health professionals from a Dutch social security institute viewed six videos of consultations between insurance physicians and precarious workers. They then used REMODE to assess the worker’s return-to-work mode and need for occupational support. Participants also rated REMODE’s validity and usability with 5-point Likert scale questions based on the Content Validity Index and System Usability Scale. We used a generalized linear mixed model to analyse inter-rater agreement and inter-item consistency. The professionals highly agreed on the REMODE-score ICC 0.87 (95% CI 0.63–0.97) and corresponding return-to-work mode ICC 0.83 (0.54–0.95), Κω 0.75 (0.74–0.75). Their agreement on need for occupational support was moderate ICC 0.65 (0.30–0.89), Κω 0.57 (0.56–0.57). REMODE’s internal consistency demonstrated excellence (Cronbach’s alpha 0.92), and the content validity index (0.83) and system usability scale (76) were acceptable. REMODE is a promising tool for occupational health professionals as it supports identification of the return-to-work mode of precarious workers with mental health issues. We propose a refined version of RE-MODE for use in occupational healthcare and research.
Suijkerbuijk et al. (Tue,) studied this question.