IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i23p15809-d986083.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effects of Vocational Rehabilitation on the Use of Health Care Services in Finland: A Propensity Score Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Hanna Rinne

    (The Social Insurance Institution of Finland, Nordenskiöldinkatu 12, 00250 Helsinki, Finland)

  • Riku Perhoniemi

    (The Social Insurance Institution of Finland, Nordenskiöldinkatu 12, 00250 Helsinki, Finland)

Abstract

Vocational rehabilitation may affect the frequency of health care use by improving the access or reducing the need for health care. We examined whether participation in rehabilitation effects the healthcare services use. Register-based data was utilized on all individuals aged 15–60 living in the city of Oulu, Finland, who started vocational rehabilitation in 2014–2015 (N = 784). We examined the use of outpatient health care services from 1.5 years before to 1.5 years after the start of rehabilitation and 1.5 years after the end of rehabilitation, and compared it to the propensity score matched controls. Rehabilitees had on average 1.5 visits to outpatient health care services in the 6th quarter before the start of rehabilitation. In the 4th quarter before the start of rehabilitation, that number increased to 1.8. After the rehabilitation period, the quarterly number of visits returned to the same level as at the beginning of the follow-up. The biggest changes were in the use of occupational health services. Compared to the propensity score matched controls, vocational rehabilitation did not appear to affect the use of health care services. Vocational rehabilitation seems to replace need for other services but not to affect the need to receive treatment for the underlying disease.

Suggested Citation

  • Hanna Rinne & Riku Perhoniemi, 2022. "Effects of Vocational Rehabilitation on the Use of Health Care Services in Finland: A Propensity Score Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-13, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:23:p:15809-:d:986083
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/15809/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/15809/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:23:p:15809-:d:986083. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.