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.
