The Medical Advice for Sick-reported Students (MASS) intervention aims to address school absenteeism attributed to sickness. It consists of an integrated approach in which schools, in direct collaboration with youth healthcare physicians, reach out to students and their parents to discuss aspects of the student’s medical absence, and to design and monitor a management plan to optimise students’ health and maximize students’ participation in school activities. The role of physicians is to advise on the emotional and/or physical well-being of students and to provide care guidelines to them and their parents.
The introduction of this measure requires a partnership between the healthcare system and the education system. Although in the Netherlands this is not common on a national level, the West Brabant region has agreed on such a partnership for the implementation of MASS. No additional registration systems are needed to implement MASS in schools, which allows it to fit easily into current administrative and operational school structures.