Customer Paths of the Vocational Rehabilitation Survey (AKSE)
The Vocational Rehabilitation Survey (AKSE) combines a rehabilitation survey and a rehabilitation needs assessment, which were previously separate services. AKSE is a service in which a multiprofessional team and a client jointly assess a person's work, functional and study ability, competence, working life skills, and need for rehabilitation. Based on the report, the client and the multiprofessional team together prepare a professional plan for the client.
Research questions
- What kind of customers are referred to the AKSE service? What sociodemographic factors characterise the clientele, and what is their position in the labour market? What is known about their functional capacity based on Kela's register data, especially from the perspective of illnesses or injuries?
- What Kela services and benefits preceded the AKSE service?
- Which Kela services do AKSE service users typically engage with, and what benefits will be received after the service?
The research material used is Kela's rehabilitation registers, which are used to examine rehabilitation application and payment data. The material is also combined with information on the customer's use of medicines and sociodemographic data. The persons included in the study are selected from Kela's benefit registers and include all those who received a positive decision on AKSE rehabilitation in 2019–2021 and their Kela rehabilitation from 2017–2022. After selection, the data is processed with R software in Kela's analytics environment. The research data is analysed using statistical methods suitable for processing quantitative data.
Researchers
- Pekka Heino, Leading Researcher
- Saija Karinkanta
- Riitta Seppänen-Järvelä
Project Implementation Period
1 September 2023–31 December 2024. The project has ended.
Project Results
When a rehabilitation client undergoes a vocational rehabilitation assessment offered by Kela, their ability to work, function and study is assessed and they receive support for drawing up a rehabilitation plan. The study used register data analysis to generate data on clients who have undergone a vocational rehabilitation assessment and on their circumstances before and after rehabilitation. Particular attention was paid to which rehabilitation services and benefits the clients had received before undergoing a vocational rehabilitation assessment and which rehabilitation services they accessed afterwards. An average of approximately 5,800 clients undergo a vocational rehabilitation assessment each year. More than 10% of these clients participated in vocational rehabilitation for young persons. Altogether 50% of rehabilitation participants had a mental and behavioural disorder while 25% had a musculoskeletal disorder. Approximately 20% of participants had received some other diagnosis, and about 43% had been granted a special rate of reimbursement for one or more medicines. Data on benefits received by the clients examined together with data on their diagnoses showed the occurrence of a variety of chronic illnesses that limited clients’ ability to work and function. Most clients were unemployed before participating in rehabilitation, while 14% were paid sickness allowance and 12% a disability pension. Rehabilitative psychotherapy was the most common type of rehabilitation the clients participated in before undergoing a vocational rehabilitation assessment. Clients most commonly participated in employment-promoting vocational rehabilitation after completing their vocational rehabilitation assessment, but altogether 50% of the clients did not receive any rehabilitation offered by Kela afterwards.
