Recovery from breast cancer presents many challenges, including concerns about money and returning to work. The experience of returning to work can also be influenced by the consequences of treatment (e.g., fatigue, cognitive disorders, chronic pain), job-related rethinking, and by varying levels of support in the workplace.
In Quebec, there are very few services specifically designed to help cancer survivors reintegrate into the workforce. To fill this gap, social work researchers have developed a group intervention aimed at supporting women survivors in their return-to-work process. Let’s look at what CDPs working with people with work-related disabilities can learn from this study.
Derome and Roy recruited seven women aged between 39 and 60 who had survived breast cancer and were planning to return or had returned to work. The researchers organized a support group for a period of six weeks, with one two-hour meeting per week.
The intervention model chosen by the researchers is centered on mutual aid, with a free and flexible structure. The practitioner’s role is to facilitate interaction between the participants. To evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention model, a logbook was filled in by the facilitator and the sessions were recorded. Participants also completed three psychometric questionnaires, both before and after the intervention process. These addressed apprehension about returning to work, integration of stressful experiences, and satisfaction with the group intervention.
The results revealed that the group is a resource that helps most participants in the return-to-work process. The group provided them with a common space in which to address their apprehensions about their relationship with work, facilitated their empowerment, and raised their awareness of the resources available. The group intervention also enabled participants to give meaning to their cancer experience and redefine their relationship with work. The participants reported that they appreciated the composition of the group, particularly the fact that they were all at different stages in the process, and that each contributed in their own way to the pooling of resources and tools. They also said that a guest presentation on their experience of returning to work after breast cancer treatment had given them hope.
Although there are few career development services tailored for breast cancer survivors, an intervention focusing on mutual aid between participants appears to be an effective approach that can be used by CDPs to support people returning to work after breast cancer. This type of intervention could also be appropriate for people with other forms of temporary or chronic work disability, but further studies are needed.
In conclusion, the authors point out that workplaces have a key impact on the success of their employees’ return to work: not including them in the return-to-work process is only placing this burden on the shoulders of the survivors. Involving workplaces is therefore an interesting avenue for future interventions with clients in a transition to work.
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