The aim of the study was to understand the processing of sickness benefit cases concerning mental illness from the perspective of the social insurance officer in order to contribute with knowledge about legal certainty and expressions of power in relation to the processing of sickness benefit cases concerning mental illness. To achieve this aim, six social insurance officers from one social insurance agency were interviewed using a semi-structured interview format. The interviews were then transcribed and analysed thematically. The authors found, among other things, that cases concerning mental illness were more difficult to process mainly because physicians struggle to formulate sufficient medical certificates. The authors also found that the legal certainty can be questioned because the vast majority of cases that are granted do not go through quality assurance. Furthermore, the rejection rate of cases differed between social insurance officers. Thus, implying that cases are not processed in a similar manner, which is required in order to achieve legal certainty. Expressions of power were found between the social insurance officer and the insured. Instances of officers withholding crucial information from the insured were found, which is an expression of power/knowledge. The authors also found that social insurance officers tend to use a language of power that is difficult for the insured to comprehend in the letters that notify the decision.

Syftet med studien var att ta reda på hur ett antal individer som fått besked om nekad sjukpenning trots läkarintyg upplever och hanterar sin livssituation och deras ekonomiska förutsättningar efter förlorad sjukpenning. För att besvara studiens syfte och frågeställningar genomfördes kvalitativa intervjuer med sju individer som har upplevelse av att få nekad sjukpenning trots läkarintyg. Teorierna som tillämpats i analysen var coping och stigma. Resultatet visade att majoriteten av respondenterna upplevde att de påverkats negativt av beskedet, både ur ett känslomässigt och ekonomiskt perspektiv. För att hantera sin livssituation använde respondenterna både problemfokuserade och emotionella copingstrategier. Resultatet visade även att majoriteten av respondenterna upplever sig stigmatiserade, både i samhället och av myndigheterna. En av studiens viktigaste slutsatser är att det finns brister i sjukförsäkringen. Det saknas samverkan mellan Försäkringskassan, den enskilde och andra myndigheter. Bedömningen av den enskildes sjukdom och arbetsförmåga skiljer sig också mellan läkare och försäkringskassa. / The aim of the study was to explore the experience of individuals who have been denied sickness benefit despite medical certificates and how they master life and their economy without it. To answer the questions of the study, qualitative interviews were conducted with seven individuals who have the experience of being denied sickness benefit despite medical certificates. The theories applied in analyzes were coping and stigma. Results showed that respondents felt they were negatively affected, both from an emotional and financial perspective. To manage their life situation, respondents used both problem focused and emotional coping strategies. Results showed that respondents felt stigmatized, both in society and by the authorities. Conclusion of the study is that there are shortcomings in Swedish health insurance. Collaboration is poor between social insurance agency and the individual. The assistant of the individual’s illness and ability to work differs between doctor and social insurance fund.

The diploma thesis deals with the topic of insurance system in the Czech Republic and its transformations since 2009. Analysis of social and economic effect that was brought by alternation in legislation in code 187 / 2006 has become the objective of this work. The reasons for issuing the legislation alternation were struggles to change negative trends in sick insurance, to avoid unjustified costs and to ensure financial stability of the system. The introduction mentions theoretical concepts concerning the topic of the work and methods and procedures used while composing this diploma thesis. The area of the sick insurance is characterized by basic principles, terms and conditions in claim system and brief history of social protection institute in Czech Republic is also covered. The empiric part describes individual changes as a part of public finance reform. Specific impact on selected actors was subsequently analyzed. Three possible sceneries of resolving sick insurance issue are designed in the final part of the work.

Stressrelaterad psykisk ohälsa ökar mest och står för den längsta varaktigheten bland sjukskrivningarna. Förändringar i sjukförsäkringssystemet och beslut om att minska sjuktalen har gett konsekvenser som ökat antal avslag om sjukpenning. Syftet med studien var att undersöka erfarenheter av avslag om sjukpenning från Försäkringskassan hos personer med stressrelaterad psykisk ohälsa för att beskriva och förstå vad det får för betydelse för deras sjukdomsbild och återhämtning. Studien är kvalitativ och har genomförts genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem personer som drabbats av stressrelaterad psykisk ohälsa och fått avslag om sjukpenning från Försäkringskassan. Materialet som samlats genom intervjuerna har analyserats med Ulrich Becks teorin om risksamhället och Randall Collins teori om symboliska interaktionskedjor samt tidigare forskning. Resultatet i studien indikerar att avslag om sjukpenning påverkar sjukdomsbilden och möjligheten till återhämtning negativt för personer som drabbats av stressrelaterad psykisk ohälsa. Respondenterna upplevde att avslaget förlängt sjukdomstiden, genom minskad möjlighet till återhämtning och förvärrad sjukdomsbild. Resultatet visar även på en samlad bild av upplevelsen av avslaget om sjukpenning från Försäkringskassan. Personerna upplever inte att handläggare på Försäkringskassan tror dem och därmed känner de sig kränkta. / Stress-related disorders have increased and accounts for the longest duration of sick leave. Changes in the health insurance system and decisions to reduce the sick-leave have had consequences such as an increased number of rejection of sickness benefits. The aim of this study was to investigate the experience for people having a stress-related disorder and being rejected sickness benefits from the Social Insurance Fund, to describe and understand the importance for their disease image and recovery. The study is qualitative and has been conducted through semistructured interviews with five participants who suffered from stress-related disorders and received a refusal of sickness benefits from the Social Insurance Fund. The material gathered through the interviews has been analyzed with Ulrich Beck’s theory of risk society and Randall Collin’s theory of symbolic interaction-chains and previous research. The result of this study indicates that the refusal of sickness benefits affects the recovery rate negatively for the participants in the study. The participants felt that the refusal extended the disease time, and they experienced reduced opportunities to recover and a worse diseases image. The result also shows a consistent picture of the experience of receiving a refusal of sickness benefits from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency. The participants do not feel that the case officers at the Social Security Fund believe them and thus they feel offended.

The theme of this thesis is draft of measures body related with changes in sick benefit system. The goal of this thesis is the analysis of impact of changes in sick benefit system on employer and the draft of measures for the subject. There is a description of sick benefit system used in CR and in other countries EU in this thesis. There is a describtion of the changes and the impacts on employer are analysed. The last part of the thesis is composed by draft of measures related with these changes.

Presented diploma theses evaluates the sickness insurance system in the Czech Republic and Europe from the point of view of the Czech Republic citizens. The aim of the work is to analyze the sickness insurance system in the Czech Republic regarding the system changes and also to find out the reform impacts on insured. Simultaneously the aim is to compare the impacts of the Czech insured with the impacts on those migratory workers who draw a claim to the insurance benefit from foreign systems of Europe. The theory of the social capital focused on the social policy and the social security and its legitimacy, theory of the inequality and poverty, the theory of the human capital and the theory of the bureaucracy were the basis of this work. In order to acquire the objective data at first it was made the comparative analysis of the chosen sickness insurance systems in Europe. Other part of this work is focused on the reform of the sickness insurance system in the Czech Republic and it analyses and compares some chosen indicators of the system focusing the years 2008 and 2009. The first half of the empirical part of the work is made on the basis of the qualitative research and it shows the impacts of the reform on the employees, presents their attitudes, their impressions and their opinions on contemporary shape...

<p>After the elections in 2006 there was a change of government in Sweden, when the Moderate Party with the right block took over the power from the Social democrats. The politics of the new government is more liberal than the politics of the Social democrats, which implied several changes of the Swedish social security system, in particular some important changes of the sickness benefit.</p><p>The objective of this essay has been to examinate the changes of the system, as well as the reasons for the changes, and also to compare the system in Sweden to the one in France, who has another structure.</p><p>The methods used are archive and corpus crossings in terms of collecting information from literature and websites of the social insurance offices in Sweden and in France. Further a qualitative method has been carried out in shape of an interview with the administrative official responsible of the sickness benefit at the social insurance office in Växjö.</p><p>The result has shown that there are several reasons for the changes in the Swedish system. It seems as if the most important reason is the big number of individuals on the sick-list which causes economical problems, since the employment rate is too low compared to the retired quotient of the population. The economical crises might have an influence on the changes of the systems, but not the present recession. Despite the rather big changes from a social system towards a more liberal one, the Swedish scheme has still kept its basic characteristics.</p> / <p>En 2006, la Suède a eu un changement de gouvernement. Les sociaux-démocrates ont été remplacés par l'alliance entre les partis à droite. Le nouveau gouvernement mène une politique plus libérale que les sociaux-démocrates, et ils ont introduit plusieurs changements dans le système de santé et particulièrement dans le règlement de l'indemnité journalière.</p><p>Ce mémoire a pour but d'examiner les changements dans le système, ainsi que les raisons de ces changements.</p><p>Les méthodes appliquées sont l'archive et le corpus, puisque j'ai étudié les ouvrages relatifs à la santé ainsi que les sites Internet des institutions responsables de l'indemnité journalière en Suède et en France. J'ai aussi eu un entretien avec un employé de la Caisse de Sécurité sociale à Växjö qui s'occupe particulièrement de l'indemnité journalière.</p><p>Les résultats de cette étude montrent qu'il y a plusieurs raisons à l'origine des changements dans le système suédois. Il semble que la raison la plus importante soit le nombre croissant de personnes en arrêt maladie ce qui génère des difficultés économiques, de même la proportion de la population active par rapport aux retraités est au cœur de la problématique. Enfin, les crises économiques peuvent influencer le système, mais la crise actuelle ne semble pas avoir eu une influence importante sur les changements.</p><p>Malgré les changements assez bouleversants vers un système plus libéral en Suède, qui tend à se rapprocher légèrement du système français, le système suédois reste plus social que le système français.</p>

This thesis studies how sick leave legitimacy is managed in interaction and develops an empirically driven conceptualization of ‘legitimacy work’. The thesis applies an ethnomethodological framework that draws on conversation analysis, discursive psychology, and membership categorization analysis. Naturally occurring interaction is examined in two settings: (1) multi-party meetings at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, in which participants assess and discuss the ‘status’ of the sick leave and plan for work rehabilitation; (2) peer-based online text-in-interaction in a Swedish forum thread that gathers people on sick leave. The thesis shows how mental states, activities and alternative categories function as resources for legitimacy work. However, such invocations are no straight-forward matter, but impose additional contingencies. It is thus crucial how they are invoked. By detailed analyses of the interaction, with attention to aspects such as lexicality and delivery, the thesis identifies a range of discursive features that manage sick leave legitimacy. Deployed resources are also subtle enough to be deniable as legitimacy work, that is, they also manage the risk of an utterance being seen as invested or biased. While legitimate sick leave is a core concern for Swedish policy-making, administration, and public debate on sick leave, previous research has for the most part been explanatory in orientation, minding legitimacy rather than studying it in its own right. By providing detailed knowledge about the legitimacy work that people on long-term sick leave do as part of both institutional and mundane encounters, the thesis contributes not only new empirical knowledge, but a new kind of empirical knowledge, shedding light on how the complexities of sick leave play out in real-life situations. Traditional sociological approaches have to a significant extent treated legitimacy as an entity with beginnings and ends that in more or less direct ways relate to external norms and cognitive states, or that focus on institutions, authority or government. By contrast, the herein emerging concept ‘legitimacy work’ understands legitimacy as a locally contingent practicality – a collaborative categorially oriented accomplishment that is integral to the interactional situation.

After the elections in 2006 there was a change of government in Sweden, when the Moderate Party with the right block took over the power from the Social democrats. The politics of the new government is more liberal than the politics of the Social democrats, which implied several changes of the Swedish social security system, in particular some important changes of the sickness benefit. The objective of this essay has been to examinate the changes of the system, as well as the reasons for the changes, and also to compare the system in Sweden to the one in France, who has another structure. The methods used are archive and corpus crossings in terms of collecting information from literature and websites of the social insurance offices in Sweden and in France. Further a qualitative method has been carried out in shape of an interview with the administrative official responsible of the sickness benefit at the social insurance office in Växjö. The result has shown that there are several reasons for the changes in the Swedish system. It seems as if the most important reason is the big number of individuals on the sick-list which causes economical problems, since the employment rate is too low compared to the retired quotient of the population. The economical crises might have an influence on the changes of the systems, but not the present recession. Despite the rather big changes from a social system towards a more liberal one, the Swedish scheme has still kept its basic characteristics. / En 2006, la Suède a eu un changement de gouvernement. Les sociaux-démocrates ont été remplacés par l'alliance entre les partis à droite. Le nouveau gouvernement mène une politique plus libérale que les sociaux-démocrates, et ils ont introduit plusieurs changements dans le système de santé et particulièrement dans le règlement de l'indemnité journalière. Ce mémoire a pour but d'examiner les changements dans le système, ainsi que les raisons de ces changements. Les méthodes appliquées sont l'archive et le corpus, puisque j'ai étudié les ouvrages relatifs à la santé ainsi que les sites Internet des institutions responsables de l'indemnité journalière en Suède et en France. J'ai aussi eu un entretien avec un employé de la Caisse de Sécurité sociale à Växjö qui s'occupe particulièrement de l'indemnité journalière. Les résultats de cette étude montrent qu'il y a plusieurs raisons à l'origine des changements dans le système suédois. Il semble que la raison la plus importante soit le nombre croissant de personnes en arrêt maladie ce qui génère des difficultés économiques, de même la proportion de la population active par rapport aux retraités est au cœur de la problématique. Enfin, les crises économiques peuvent influencer le système, mais la crise actuelle ne semble pas avoir eu une influence importante sur les changements. Malgré les changements assez bouleversants vers un système plus libéral en Suède, qui tend à se rapprocher légèrement du système français, le système suédois reste plus social que le système français.

Analysis of work incapacity in the Czech Republic: trends and determinants Abstract The thesis addresses trends of work incapacity in the Czech Republic after the establishment of the independent Czech state on 1st January 1993 up to the present. In the theoretical part it focuses on the legislative changes affecting work incapacity during the period under study. Furthermore, it describes work incapacity using demographic indicators of work incapacity and focuses on the structure of work incapacity according to the international classification of diseases (MKN-10), according to the age, region, seasonal trends and occupational classification (CZ-ISCO). This part mainly shows the development of the average percentage of incapacity for work, terminated cases of incapacity for work per 100 000 insured people and the analysis of the average length of incapacity for work. The next chapter is based on the advanced data analysis of the Labor Force Survey. The last chapter is dedicated to the international comparison of work incapacity. Keywords: temporary incapacity for work, terminated cases of incapacity for work, Czech Republic, sickness insurance, sickness rate, sickness benefit