Abstract
Objectives:
Most patients with health conditions necessitating time off work consult in primary care. Offering
vocational advice (VA) early within this setting may help them to return to work and reduce sickness absence.
Previous research shows the benefits of VA interventions for musculoskeletal pain in primary care, but an intervention
for a much broader primary care patient population has yet to be tested. The Work And Vocational advicE feasibility
study tested patient identification and recruitment methods, explored participants’ experiences of being invited to the
study and their experiences of receiving VA.
Design:
A mixed method, single arm feasibility study comprising both quantitative and qualitative analysis of
recruitment and participation in the study.
Setting:
Primary care.
Methods:
The study included participant follow-up by fortnightly Short Message Service text and 6-week
questionnaire. Stop/go criteria focus on recruitment and intervention engagement. The semistructured interviews
explored participants’ experiences of recruitment and receipt and engagement with the intervention.
Results 19 participants were recruited (4.3% response rate). Identification of participants via retrospective fit-
note searches was reasonably successful (13/19 (68%) identified), recruitment stop/go criteria were met with
≥50% of those eligible and expressing an interest recruited. The stop/go criterion for intervention engagement was
met with 16/19 (86%) participants having at least one contact with a vocational support worker. Five participants
were interviewed; they reported positive experiences of recruitment and felt the VA intervention was acceptable.
Conclusion:
This study demonstrates that delivering VA in primary care is feasible and acceptable. To ensure a future
trial is feasible, recruitment strategies and data collection methods require additional refinement.
Most patients with health conditions necessitating time off work consult in primary care. Offering
vocational advice (VA) early within this setting may help them to return to work and reduce sickness absence.
Previous research shows the benefits of VA interventions for musculoskeletal pain in primary care, but an intervention
for a much broader primary care patient population has yet to be tested. The Work And Vocational advicE feasibility
study tested patient identification and recruitment methods, explored participants’ experiences of being invited to the
study and their experiences of receiving VA.
Design:
A mixed method, single arm feasibility study comprising both quantitative and qualitative analysis of
recruitment and participation in the study.
Setting:
Primary care.
Methods:
The study included participant follow-up by fortnightly Short Message Service text and 6-week
questionnaire. Stop/go criteria focus on recruitment and intervention engagement. The semistructured interviews
explored participants’ experiences of recruitment and receipt and engagement with the intervention.
Results 19 participants were recruited (4.3% response rate). Identification of participants via retrospective fit-
note searches was reasonably successful (13/19 (68%) identified), recruitment stop/go criteria were met with
≥50% of those eligible and expressing an interest recruited. The stop/go criterion for intervention engagement was
met with 16/19 (86%) participants having at least one contact with a vocational support worker. Five participants
were interviewed; they reported positive experiences of recruitment and felt the VA intervention was acceptable.
Conclusion:
This study demonstrates that delivering VA in primary care is feasible and acceptable. To ensure a future
trial is feasible, recruitment strategies and data collection methods require additional refinement.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e098768 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | BMJ Open |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| Early online date | 29 Dec 2025 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 29 Dec 2025 |
Bibliographical note
Copyright © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2025. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ Group. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Data Access Statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. All data are available on request, following Keele University’s data request process, by contacting the first author and [email protected].Funding
The WAVE trial was funded by the NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme (NIHR 17/94/49).
Keywords
- Adult
- Feasibility Studies
- Female
- Humans
- Male
- Middle Aged
- Musculoskeletal Pain/rehabilitation
- Patient Selection
- Primary Health Care
- Return to Work
- Surveys and Questionnaires
- Vocational Guidance/methods