Introduction
It is widely known that continued employment for people with brain injuries is challenging. However, the factors that actually lead to difficulty to continue employment have not been clarified.
Objectives
This is a pilot study to explore the factors that lead to difficulties in continuing employment for people with brain injuries by interviewing employers.
Methods
Participants are 7 employers and 7 employees with brain injuries. For each employer, semi-structured interviews were conducted and recorded. The interview guide included items such as checklists of cognitive symptoms, difficulties during work, reasonable accommodations, and burdens of employers. All interviews were transcribed and inductively and qualitatively analyzed.
This study was conducted with institutional approval of the Ethics Review Committee of X University.
Results
The resulting codes were 191, and the categories were 10. The categories with the most frequently codes were ‘cognitive function problems (77 data)’, ‘deterioration of interpersonal relationships (50)’, ‘the burden of providing constant support for employees (35)’, and ‘The employees were not aware of their difficulties (20)’. The main cognitive problems were executive function and sociality, and there were no results for aphasia or apraxia.
Conclusion
It suggested that cognitive functions related to sociality are required in the workplace. The Japanese government employment system requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for people with impairments. However, in reality, the burden of providing assistance was an important factor for employers. It is necessary to establish specialized vocational rehabilitation for people with brain injuries, for example, to improve their metacognitive functions.