[Vocational Rehabilitation for Mentally Ill Persons--an Overview of Predictors for Successful Integration]

Objectives: Unemployment has a strong negative impact on quality of life and on the further course of the disease of mentally disordered individuals. Therefore, vocational rehabilitation programmes are necessary to help people with mental disorders to obtain work. There is increasing scientific evidence concerning positive predictors for vocational integration. This paper intends to give an overview about established predictors for successful integration.

Methods: "Pubmed" was searched for studies on psychiatric vocational rehabilitation programmes published between 1997 and 2007, which had the focus on predictors of successful outcome.

Results: Some of the most important predictors are a better history of work integration and better work performance measured during psychiatric vocational rehabilitation. Successful vocational integration is harder if negative symptoms or cognitive deficits are present. The impact of sociodemographic factors, diagnosis, motivation to work and social skills is discussed controversially.

Conclusion: Future research should be directed to design vocational rehabilitation programmes, which address the specific needs of psychiatric patients.