Introduction The number of people in the working population diagnosed with one or more chronic diseases will increase. Self-management at work may facilitate workers with a chronic disease to continue working. Occupational and insurance physicians can play a key role in supporting this self-management at work, as this fits within their preventive task. The aim of this project is to explore how occupational and insurance physicians can optimally support chronically ill workers in improving their self-management at work. We will develop an intervention that will fit within the needs of all stakeholders involved, using Intervention Mapping (IM) as a tool.

Methods The intervention will be developed with the use of the 6 step IM protocol:

• Needs assessment;

• Definition of change objectives;

• Selection of theory based methods and practical strategies;

• Program development;

• Adoption and implementation plan;

• Evaluation plan.

Step 1, the needs assessment will consist of a systematic review of the literature and a qualitative explorative study using focus groups. In the focus groups with chronically ill workers, occupational and insurance physicians we will explore their perceptions on self-management at work, their needs for support in improving self-management at work and the views of occupational and insurance physicians on providing this support.

Result The results of the needs assessment are expected early 2018 and will be available for presentation at the conference.

Discussion The iterative steps of the IM protocol help to develop an intervention for occupational and insurance physicians that enables them to support workers with a chronic disease in improving self-management at work, to maintain productivity and to prevent sick leave and job loss.