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Jan Sandqvist

Senior Associate Professor

Assessments of work ability are a central element of measures for work rehabilitation. A significant part of my research is about increasing our understanding of the concept of work ability and developing methods for assessing it.

Development of methods that focus on people’s work ability

Work ability is a complex phenomenon, and the concept is not very easy to define as it is influenced by so many factors. Assessment methods as well as interventions need to be studied carefully in order to optimise measures in work rehabilitation and enable evidence-based rehabilitation. 

My research has long been dedicated to understanding and explaining the concept of  work ability, and to this end it has produced a conceptual frame of reference, Assessment of Work Functioning (AWF). Another central element of my research involves the continuing development and testing of two instruments used in assessing work ability – Assessment of Work Performance (AWP) and Assessment of Work Characteristics (AWC). Both of these instruments are based on the Model of Human Occupation.

Development of instruments

As a complement to AWP I have also developed AWC, a work requirements analysis that focuses on what demands a work task places on an individual. AWP and AWC thus allow for an individual’s capacity (evaluated using AWP) to be matched to the requirements of a particular job (evaluated using AWC), providing a fuller assessment. Recently my research has increasingly come to include the development and evaluation of interventions aimed at improving the subject’s work ability and employability, and this is an area of research I intend to dedicate myself to even more in the future. AWP currently has a large number of users in Sweden, but the tool has also been translated to other languages, including English, Dutch and Icelandic. Translations into further languages are in progress.

Assistant supervisor

I am the assistant supervisor of Maria Borgestig, who is a doctoral student on the research project “Eye controlled computers in everyday life – for children with severe physical disabilities”. The research project is part of the research theme “Young and digital – enabling technology.”

Teaching work rehabilitation 

 I am currently the course coordinator on two courses at Linköping University, both connected with the field of work rehabilitation. The course Work Rehabilitation, on which I am also the examiner, is a first-cycle course offered within the context of the Occupational Therapy programme. The other course is the Master’s course Occupational therapy and work rehabilitation.

Publications

Cover of publication ''
Jan Sandqvist, Chris Henriksson (2004)
Work functioning - a conceptual framework

Work: A journal of Prevention, Assessment and rehabilitation , Vol.23 , s.147-157

Cover of publication ''
Jan Sandqvist, Mathilda Björk, Mats Gullberg, Chris Henriksson, Björn Gerdle (2009)
Construct validity of the Assessment of Work Performance (AWP)

Work: A journal of Prevention, Assessment and rehabilitation , Vol.32 , s.211-218 Continue to DOI

Cover of publication ''
Chia-Wei Fan, Renee R. Taylor, Elin Ekbladh, Helena Hemmingsson, Jan Sandqvist (2013)
Evaluating the Psychometric Properties of a Clinical Vocational Rehabilitation Outcome Measurement: The Assessment of Work Performance (AWP)

OTJR (Thorofare, N.J.) , Vol.33 , s.125-133 Continue to DOI

2024

Charlotte Wåhlin, Sebastian Buck, Paul Enthoven, Maria Andreassen, Jan Sandqvist, Patrik Haraldsson, Jenni Fock, Emma Nilsing Strid (2024) Risk assessment of healthcare workers' exposure to physical load in relation to patient handling and movement: a feasibility study of the instrument TilThermometer BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, Vol. 25, Article 399 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Elin Karlsson, Mattias Hellgren, Jan Sandqvist, Ida Seing, Christian Ståhl (2024) Social Insurance Literacy Among the Sick-listed-A Study of Clients' Comprehension and Self-Rated System Comprehensibility of the Sickness Insurance System Journal of occupational rehabilitation (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Kine Stromstad, Lisebet S. Skarpaas, Sturla I. Haslerud, Yeasir A. Alve, Jan Sandqvist, Randi W. Aas (2024) Exploring return to work barriers through the lens of model of human occupation. The NOW WHAT project Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, Vol. 31, Article 2297732 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Christian Ståhl, Elin Karlsson, Marika Wenemark, Jan Sandqvist, Kristofer Arestedt (2024) The Social Insurance Literacy Questionnaire (SILQ): Development and Psychometric Evaluation Journal of occupational rehabilitation, Vol. 34, p. 693-706 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

2023

Jennie Ingrid Kristina Nyman, Elin Ekbladh, Mathilda Björk, Peter Johansson, Jan Sandqvist (2023) Feasibility of a new homebased ballistocardiographic tool for sleep-assessment in a real-life context among workers Work: A journal of Prevention, Assessment and rehabilitation, Vol. 74, p. 1353-1360 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

Research

Stressade människor

Vocational rehabilitation – assessment and intervention

The focus of the research field is work ability, and how this complex phenomenon can be assessed and understood as a basis for interventions.
A close up on a hand that holds a piece of a puzzle. Under the hand there is a lot of other pieces of a puzzle.

Occupational therapy research

Occupational therapy research aims to reduce obstacles to functioning in society and increase individuals’ opportunities for participating actively in their everyday situations irrespective of their disabilities.

Assessment instruments

Håller i ett papper med resultat / A person holds a sheet of paper with factual information

Instruments for assessing work ability

The assessment instruments AWC, AWP, WEIS & WRI are used by county council, national, municipal and private rehabilitation actors in Sweden for the assessment of individuals’ work ability and for designing person-centred rehabilitation interventions.
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AWC

Assessment of Work Characteristics
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AWP

Assessment of Work Performance

Research collaboration

My network includes both national and international researchers. Below are some examples of my research collaborations. Translating the assessment instruments to various languages is part of my work, and I plan to take part in projects intended to translate AWP to Spanish, German, Finnish, Danish and Norwegian, in collaboration with researchers/research groups in other countries.

Försäkringskassan

In the summer of 2010 Försäkringskassan was commissioned, in collaboration with the National Board of Health and Welfare and in consultation with Arbetsförmedlingen, to further develop methods and instruments for the assessment of work ability within public health insurance. Early in 2013 a new model for assessment of work ability, known as the activity ability analysis (aktivitetsförmågeutredningen, or AFU, in Swedish), was presented, and the model included AWP as an occupational therapy instrument. As a part of the development of the new method, AWP (specifically the AWP-FK application) was evaluated in a project which I coordinated: Prövning av diskriminativ förmåga för AWP-F (Försäkringskassan).

Evaluation of the activity ability analysis

As a further element of the evaluation of AFU, Linköping University (LiU) was also awarded research funds from Försäkringskassan (SEK 3 million) for a more comprehensive evaluation of the AFU method. This evaluation is being carried out as a joint LiU project, composed of two subprojects. I am project coordinator of one of the subprojects, and am collaborating on it with Professor Björn Gerdle of the Department of Medical and Health Sciences (abbreviated IMH in Swedish). I am also collaborating closely with researchers Christian Ståhl and Ida Seing, both of them also of IMH, who are in charge of the other subproject.

Karolinska Institutet (KI)

One project I am involved in, which was initiated by KI, deals with measuring the effects on clients’ work ability of intensive cognitive rehabilitation following an acquired brain injury. Among other instruments, this project uses AWP for measuring effect. I am collaborating on it with KI’s Marie-Louise Schult, Adjunct senior lecturer, and doctoral student Kristina Sargenius Landahl.

University of Illinois at Chicago

I am also collaborating with Professor Renee Taylor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. One example of this collaboration is that I have recently accepted an offer to be the main author of a chapter in the fifth edition of the book “Model of Human Occupation”. This commission is for a new chapter, which was not included in earlier editions and which is entitled “Applying the Model of Human Occupation to Work Rehabilitation”. Professor Taylor has the overall responsibility for the book.

Translations

Work is underway on translations of AWP to Finnish, Norwegian, Danish and German, and for studies related to the translation process as well as for distribution of the instrument I am collaborating with:

• Riita Keponen, Jennie Nyman and Janett Halonen at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki, Finland.

• Barbara Piskur and Marluuke Jakobs at Hogeschool Zuyd, Heerlen, the Netherlands. This project also includes Senior Lecturer Paul Enthoven at IMH.

Are you doing research in the same field?

Appointments

• Project coordinator of a research project to evaluate Försäkringskassan’s new method Activity ability analysis (AFU)

• Examiner on the course Work Rehabilitation on the Occupational Therapy programme

• Course coordinator on the course Work Rehabilitation on the Occupational Therapy programme, and on the course Occupational therapy and work rehabilitation

• Deputy member of the board of the Department of Social and Welfare Studies (ISV)


Academic qualifications

• Registered Occupational therapist 1994

• Doctor of Medical Science 2007

Are you doing research in the same field?

If you are a researcher in the field of work rehabilitation, assessment of work ability and/or instrument development, you are more than welcome to contact me to discuss possibilities for collaboration in various forms:

jan.sandqvist@liu.se

Collaboration with researchers in Occupational therapy

eliek78

Elin Ekbladh

Associate Professor, Docent

chrst85

Christian Ståhl

Professor

Organisation

Illustration of the letters HMV

Department of Health, Medicine and Caring Sciences (HMV)

The research areas at HMV include experimental basic research to clinical, social and public health research. We conduct high-quality education in the sought-after care professions.
A physiotherapist in a blue shirt is standing to the left of a woman in a pink shirt doing an exercise. You can not see their faces.

Division of Prevention, Rehabilitation and Community Medicine (PRNV)

We are an interdisciplinary division that consists of three units: Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, and Clinical Medicine.

Unit of Occupational Therapy

We carry out education and research in occupational therapy. Research is focused on disabilities in everyday life and comprises children and young people, adults and the oldest old.

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