The results of a study by a research team from Cologne (Niehaus et al. 2020) have shown that there are differences between how people with and without disabilities experience inclusion. Although the Federal Government's third participation report describes clear developments in the area of participation, it points to existing disadvantages in the working lives of people with disabilities compared to people without disabilities.

We would like to see whether we can find similar results in Lübeck and, on the other hand, clarify on which characteristics the experience of inclusion depends. Our questions are:

1. How many people with disabilities work at the University of Lübeck and how can people with disabilities be described in terms of demographic and health characteristics?
2. How do people with disabilities feel included in their workplace at the University of Lübeck compared to people without disabilities?
3. Which factors are associated with the experience of inclusion of people with an impairment at the University of Lübeck?
4. What do people with disabilities at the University of Lübeck know about the services on offer and do they use them?
5. What challenges and suggestions for improvement do people with disabilities see at the University of Lübeck?

We have based our definition of the term impairment on the Federal Government's Third Participation Report and understand it to mean the presence of at least one chronic impairment of a physical structure or physical function (including mental dysfunction) that has an impact on activities of daily living (BMAS, 2021, p. 20-21). This means that impairment is independent of whether a person has a recognized disability or severe disability and a degree of disability has been determined. Our definition therefore includes people with a recognized severe disability, but goes beyond this group of people.

By experience of inclusion, we mean social belonging with existing authenticity. This means that a good experience of inclusion exists when you feel well integrated or like you belong in a group - e.g. your team - and at the same time can be "yourself", even if you have an impairment.

You can download our factsheet here.

The work-related experience of inclusion (1 to 5 points) is lower for employees with an impairment than for employees without an impairment (b = -0.35; 95% CI -0.58 to -0.11; p = 0.004). A visual impairment was significantly associated with a lower experience of inclusion (b = -0.57, 95% CI: -1.05; -0.10). Employees for whom social support is important had a lower experience of inclusion (b = -0.98, 95% CI: -1.61; -0.34). Employees with a degree of disability below 50 had a higher experience of inclusion (b = 0.75, 95% CI: 0.19; 1.31) than people without a recognized degree of disability. Employees who were more open about their impairment had a higher experience of inclusion (b = 0.13, 95% CI: 0.05; 0.21). Employees with disabilities are only partially aware of the services available. Challenges and suggestions for improvement concern the infrastructure and organizational structure and social interaction.

Overall, the work-related experience of inclusion of the employees surveyed was higher than in other studies. Nevertheless, employees with disabilities had a significantly lower experience of inclusion. We were able to identify characteristics that are associated with the experience of inclusion and identify possible starting points for improving the experience of inclusion of people with disabilities in the work context. Our results do not allow any causal conclusions to be drawn and can only be generalized to a limited extent.

Design, ethics notification and study registration of the project took place from May to September 2022. A pre-test for the online survey was carried out in August 2022.
In October 2022, the employees of the university and the scientific staff of the UKSH were invited to take part in the study. From October to November 2022, the employees were surveyed and reminded of the participation option once by email in between.
The evaluation of the survey ran from November 2022 to February 2023.
A factsheet with an excerpt of the results was published in summer 2023. You can download it from this website under the menu item "Factsheet"."

In order to broaden our reach and ensure that our findings can be used instead of just "ending up in a drawer", we have teamed up with the university's Inclusion Officer and the Inclusion Round Table, who are supporting our project. Lecturers, students and a representative of the Healthy University department were also involved in the conception and revision of some questions. The staff councils, the ethics committee of the University of Lübeck and the data protection officer were also informed and involved. They gave their consent to our study.

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As this project is being carried out as part of the Master's degree program in Health and Health Care Sciences, there is no external funding. The research project is supervised and supported by the Institute of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, Prof. Dr. Matthias Bethge. For data protection reasons, only the computers available at the Institute are used for data processing and data analysis.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Annika Sternberg, Stella Lemke, the Inclusion Round Table and our lecturers and fellow students for their valuable contributions to the development and support of the project.

If you have any further questions, please contact the research team.

• Franziska Carow
• Luka Marko Rašo
• Prof. Dr. Matthias Bethge