Perspectives of Italian Employers Regarding the Return to Work Process of Employees Who Received a Cancer Diagnosis: a Qualitative Study

Overview

European Cancer Mission calls attention to the return to work (RTW) of cancer survivors (CSs), as one of the pivotal issues of the cancer continuum that need to be addressed through proper and prompt actions and recommendations. Employers are important stakeholders, as they can provide emotional and practical support, sustain communication during the entire process, and guarantee a gradual work reintegration. In Italy there is lack of knowledge regarding this topic. Thus, further exploration of Italian employers' perspectives on the RTW of employees with cancer should be performed to comprehend their unknown experiences. The aim is to explore the perspectives of employers who dealt with the RTW process of employees who received a cancer diagnosis through a qualitative research design.

Data collection will be performed through individual semi-structured interviews. Each interview will last around 60 minutes, and it can be arranged in person or remotely, depending on the participant's preference. Socio-demographic data, expertise of the employer, and company-related data will be collected through a semi-structured interview. Experiences of employers will be collected through open-ended questions using an interview guide that was written based on the one used by Tiedtke et al., 2017, by adding some questions related to the facilitators and barriers perceived by employers during the sickness absence and RTW of employee with cancer. The open-ended questions will concern general information about the company, employers' experience after cancer disclosure and during sick leave, employers' experience to sustain the RTW process and the long-term work reintegration, and the influence of the experience on the company. Each interview will be audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed according to the thematic analysis method using an inductive approach with open coding. Analysis will be iterative and involve multiple researchers to ensure inter-rater reliability of the coding procedure and the methodological rigor of the analysis. Themes generated will be discussed with Dutch researchers from the Amsterdam University Medical Centers. Analyses will be carried out at the end of each interview because, based on the themes that will emerge from each interview, we will understand when to stop recruiting.