Schizophrenia is associated with recurrent hospitalizations, need for long-term community support, poor social functioning, and low employment rates. Despite the wideranging financial and social burdens associated with the illness, there is great uncertainty regarding prevalence, employment rates, and the societal costs of schizophrenia. The current study investigates 12-month prevalence of patients treated for schizophrenia, employment rates, and cost of schizophrenia using a population-based top-down approach. Data were obtained from comprehensive and mandatory health and welfare registers in Norway. We identified a 12-month prevalence of 0.17% for the entire population. The employment rate among working-age individuals was 10.24%. The societal costs for the 12-month period were USD 890 million. The average cost per individual with schizophrenia was USD 106 thousand. Inpatient care and lost productivity due to high unemployment represented 33% and 29%, respectively, of the total costs. The use of mandatory health and welfare registers enabled a unique and informative analysis on true population-based datasets.

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The results add to existing evidence that competitive employment is attainable for individuals with schizophrenia. High global functioning and self-esteem were strongly associated with competitive employment outcome.

BackgroundThis study examined the outcomes of a vocational rehabilitation program (The Job Management Program, JUMP) for persons with psychotic disorders based on close collaboration between health and welfare services.MethodsParticipants (N = 148) with broad schizophrenia spectrum disorders (age 18–65) were recruited from six counties in Norway. Three counties were randomized to vocational rehabilitation augmented with cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), while the remaining three counties were randomized to vocational rehabilitation augmented with cognitive remediation (CR). This paper compares the vocational activity of the total group of JUMP participants with a treatment as usual group (N = 341), and further examines differences between the two JUMP interventions. Employment status (working/not working) was registered at the time of inclusion and at the end of the intervention period.ResultsThe total number of JUMP participants in any kind of vocational activity increased from 17 to 77% during the intervention. Of these, 8% had competitive employment, 36% had work placements in ordinary workplaces with social security benefits as their income, and 33% had sheltered work. The total number of working participants in the TAU group increased from 15.5 to 18.2%. The JUMP group showed significant improvements of positive (t = −2.33, p = 0.02) and general (t = −2.75, p = 0.007) symptoms of psychosis. Significant differences between the CBT and CR interventions were not demonstrated.ConclusionsThe study supports existing evidence that the majority of persons with broad schizophrenia spectrum disorders can cope with some kind of work, given that internal and external barriers are reduced. Those who wish to work should be offered vocational rehabilitation.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01139502. Registered on 6 February 2010.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12888-016-1183-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Neurocognitive impairment is a core feature in psychotic disorders and the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) is now widely used to assess neurocognition in this group. The MATRICS has been translated into several languages, including Norwegian; although this version has yet to be investigated in an adult clinical population. Further, the relationship between the MATRICS and different measures of functioning needs examination. The purpose of this study was to describe neurocognition assessed with the Norwegian version of the MATRICS battery in a sample of patients with psychotic disorders compared to age and gender matched healthy controls and to examine the association with educational-, occupational- and social-functioning in the patient group. One hundred and thirty one patients and 137 healthy controls completed the battery. The Norwegian version of the MATRICS was sensitive to the magnitude of neurocognitive impairments in patients with psychotic disorders, with patients displaying significant impairments on all domains relative to healthy controls. Neurocognition was also related to both self-rated and objective functional measures such as social functioning, educational- and employment-history.

Objective: Norway is a high-income and high-cost society with a generous welfare system, and has the largest mental health-related unemployment gap of the OECD countries. The aim of the current paper was to present a short history of Individual Placement and Support (IPS) services to increase work participation in Norway. Method: We provide a narrative overview of the developments and research on IPS in Norway, from the introduction of supported employment to recent and ongoing randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating the effectiveness of IPS for various target groups. Findings: While vocational rehabilitation services in Norway have traditionally followed a train-then-place approach, the introduction of supported employment in the early 90's led to a range of new initiatives to increase work participation. Early implementations were inspired by supported employment, but did not follow the evidence-based IPS methodology. More recent developments include a shift toward evidence-based IPS, and the first Norwegian RCT of IPS showed effectiveness on both work-and health-related outcomes among people with moderate to severe mental illness. Several ongoing trials are currently investigating IPS for new target groups including chronic pain patients and refugees. Conclusions and Implications for Practice: The results suggest that IPS is more effective than traditional approaches to increase work participation, even in the Norwegian context of a high-cost welfare society. IPS has shown effectiveness in severe as well as more common types of mental illness in Norway, and results from ongoing trials will further reveal whether IPS may be expanded to various new target groups.