title: The use of the ICF to describe work related factors influencing the health of employees.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  There are many models describing the responses of the human organism to work. However, the description of the effects on a personal level is rather limited. For this purpose the authors propose to use the concepts and the terminology of the ICF - the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health.
  
  
  METHODS
  This article starts with a description of a model from occupational medicine, the Van Dijk model. Subsequently an overview of the health state of employees is presented, including the external and personal factors that may influence participation in work.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The schematic representation of the external and personal factors presented in this article is an expansion of the ICF-scheme. The scheme can be useful to describe problems of persons related to the working situation, and to identify the points of application of care for different professionals. Although the scheme does not have the intention to be complete, it might be useful in the development, execution and evaluation of programmes designed to prevent absenteeism in general or in specific groups, and to stimulate the return of people with absence due to illness. It is shown that the items of the Van Dijk model can be described using specific terms of the ICF.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  With the elaboration of the ICF scheme and the model of Van Dijk, expanded with ICF terms, the gap between the terminology used by professionals in health care, and the terminology used by professionals in occupational medicine is partly filled.
authors.affiliation: Dutch Institute of Allied Health Care, HAN University, The Netherlands. Yvonne.Heerkens@bhh.han.nl
authors.forename: Yvonne
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Heerkens
authors.forename: Josephine
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Engels
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kuiper
authors.forename: Joost
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Van der Gulden
authors.forename: Rob
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Oostendorp
mesh_terms: D004651:Employment; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D017146:Models, Organizational; D009426:Netherlands; D009787:Occupational Medicine; D016526:Workload