The capacity to work puzzle: a qualitative study of physicians' assessments for patients with common mental disorders.

Physicians' tacit knowledge of assessing work capacity and the need for sickness absence for patients with CMD was identified as doing a jigsaw puzzle. The physicians became identifiers and creators of the pieces of the puzzle using a broad palette of essential information. Our findings contribute to the knowledge gap on clinical assessment and can be used as an educational tool. Because they are based on the professions' tacit knowledge, acceptance of the model can be expected to be high.