Powerful diagnoses and undiagnosed illnesses

Breakdown of the system

The number of citizens on sick leave due to illnesses that cannot be diagnosed is increasing – especially among women. The illnesses include depression, stress and pain disorder. Written by Associate Professor Nanna Mik-Meyer and Research Assistant Mette Brehm Johansen, the focus of the book ’Magtfulde diagnoser og diffuse lidelser’ (powerful diagnoses and undiagnosed illnesses) is on this particular group of patients.

The process is as follows: A citizen comes down with an illness, consults his own doctor and calls in sick, after which he contacts the authorities in order to get sickness benefits.

- At this point in time, the case managers have trouble helping those of their clients who suffer from undiagnosed illnesses as the legal definition of illness requires a known biomedical diagnosis, which these clients do not have, Nanna Mik-Meyer says.

Besides, the lengthy administrative procedure often allows the citizen's illness to worsen and in the meantime, the person cannot receive social benefits.

Sickness or health?

The book is based on qualitative interviews with the three principal actors: citizens on sick leave, doctors and case managers.

The authors write about the way in which case managers and doctors switch roles when meeting with the client/patient – surprisingly, the case managers operate with a significantly narrower concept of illness than doctors.

Furthermore, the authors investigate whether the case managers have the necessary working conditions. The authors discovered that the case managers work with a narrow concept of illness because they are legally required to assign a medical diagnosis before the case is allowed to proceed to the next level.

Because the doctors do not operate with the same narrow concept of illness, the two parties disagree on what constitutes sickness and health. And how to go from there?

Watch a video about the book

To watch Nanna Mik-Mayer explain about the book, click here.