Qualifying the consultative skills of the occupational health service staff

Abstract Different professional strategies within the Danish Occupational Health Service (OHS) have emerged during the last two decades, all aiming to comply with the prevention objective of the OHS. This development can be described by four successive approaches to professional occupational health and safety work: the medical approach, the technical prevention approach, the change agent approach, and the management strategy approach. For each of these approaches related training strategies have been developed. Experience shows that education and training within the traditional disciplines of OHS work have to be supplemented with a range of other qualifications that improves the consultative skills of the OHS professionals. Since these qualifications are relevant to all fields of specialization, multidisciplinary education and training proves to be part of OHS training programmes. A basic training programme of five weeks that aims to focus upon relevant multidisciplinary topics within all four approaches is offered to the Danish OHS personnel.