2.1. Study Participants

The interviewees comprised Finnish individuals with decreased work ability who had been receiving a sickness absence benefit for at least six months due to a musculoskeletal disorder (MSD). The 16 participants were recruited from a pool of 24 people whom a social insurance professional (at the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, Kela) advised to utilise a multi-professional pilot service model, called the TOIKE Work Ability Centre, during the first half of 2018. TOIKE aimed to enhance clients’ capabilities and opportunities for returning to work at Pirkanmaa and Southern Ostrobothnia hospital districts in Finland [30]. Their multi-disciplinary team included an occupational physician, rehabilitation counsellor, psychologist and social worker, who offered work ability assessments, counselling and guidance, and psychological services. However, only some interviewees contacted the TOIKE Centre. The reason for recruiting individuals from this pool was to acquire rich, qualitative data about decreased work ability and affected individuals’ service experiences and needs.

Special attention was paid to guarantee that the data were collected, stored and analysed in a way that keeps informants’ identities anonymous because the interviews focussed on sensitive issues, such as the participants’ health [27,31]. The Kela ethics committee evaluated and accepted the research plan in June 2018.

Potential interviewees were sent a letter in July 2018 that informed them about the research project and upcoming phone interviews. The recipients were told that participation was voluntary, their identities would not be revealed at any point and their answers would not be used for any other purpose than the current study [32]. Altogether, 16 individuals agreed to participate in phone interviews in August 2018. Each participant was asked specifically for his or her consent to be interviewed and to allow the interview to be audio-recorded for research purposes. Their consent was audio-recorded.

Four interviewees were women and the others men, but gender was not viewed as relevant in this study; therefore, the interviewees were given gender-neutral pseudonyms, such as Sam and Pat. However, their gender can be discerned through the use of the pronouns “he” and “she,” which were used for the sake of readability. Instead of exact ages, interviewees’ age ranges are reported. Four interviewees were in the “39 years or younger” age group, another four were in the “40–50 years” age group and the final eight were “51 years or older” (see Appendix A for descriptive information in Table A1. Interviewees’ profiles). Some of the participants lived in urban areas and some in rural areas, but the exact areas where they lived were not recorded. In Finland, both rural and urban areas have fairly equal access to social and health services.

Most interviewees had done physically demanding work [33] in agriculture, construction, logistics, manufacturing or maintenance. One had done physically demanding work in the hospitality sector, and two had done work that combined physical and mental demands in the health care and transport sectors. One interviewee worked mainly in secretarial work. Only four of the 16 interviewees had returned to their former jobs. One of the younger respondents had been accepted by a study program, where she started her studies for a physically less demanding vocation. Another respondent soon was going to start a work tryout. Most interviewees were receiving temporary financial benefits, such as sickness allowance, unemployment benefits, rehabilitation allowance, rehabilitation subsidy or partial disability pension. Appendix A (Table A1. Interviewees’ profiles.) describes each pseudonymised participant using eleven variables and individual summaries.