Can Work be Organized to Become More Health Promoting for Employees in Home Care Services?

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Work-related Injury; Occupational Exposure; Shoulder Pain; Neck Pain; Musculoskeletal Pain; Low Back Pain
• Interventions: Behavioral: Goldilocks work principle

• Registration Number: NCT05487027
• Lead Sponsor: Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Brief Summary

This is a two-group, cluster randomized controlled trial designed to assess a health promoting intervention in the home care sector. The intervention aims to evenly distribute the patients requiring high levels of demanding care across all workers on the units, which may lower the working strain and thus the incidence of musculoskeletal pain. The two groups in the study will be a control group and an intervention group. The intervention will last for approximately 4 months.

Detailed Description

This is a two-group cluster randomized controlled trial to compare an organizational intervention to control. The home care units will be treated as clusters to avoid contamination within units.

Control group: No intervention, their work will continue as usual without any instructions from researchers.

Intervention group: The intervention will consist of the operational managers distributing the physically strenuous shifts evenly between the workers in each home care unit. This will be achieved using a tool developed in Microsoft Excel which gives an overview over how much strain we expect each shift to have and gives a score on how well the operational manager distributes the strain between employees.

The intervention will last for approximately 4 months, depending on duration of pre and post measurements.

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2022-08-03
• Study First Submitted QC: 2022-08-03
• Study First Posted: 2022-08-04
• Study Start: 2022-08-22
• Primary Completion: 2023-05-15
• Study Completion: 2023-05-15
• Status Verified: 2023-06
• Last Update Submitted: 2023-06-05
• Last Update Posted: 2023-06-06

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 131

Inclusion Criteria

• Home care worker in one of the included home care units in Trondheim municipality.
• More than or equal to 50% working position at the home care unit.

Exclusion Criteria

• Physically incapable of performing day to day tasks.
• Any illness during the measurement week
• Pregnancy

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Intervention	Goldilocks work principle	Introduce a deliberate variation between workers in how much they care for physically strenuous users. Some workers may receive more strenuous work compared to before, some less.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Between group changes in musculoskeletal pain in the neck and shoulder from pre to post measurement	7 days during baseline measurements, 7 days during post measurements	The workers will rate their musculoskeletal pain in the neck and shoulder area after each working day for a week. The measurement will be repeated at the end of the intervention to assess any changes in the experience of musculoskeletal pain. The question assessing musculoskeletal pain in shoulder and neck area is phrased as "How much pain did you have in your shoulder/neck at the end of this working day?" (Translated from Norwegian).
in musculoskeletal pain in the lower back from pre to post measurement	7 days during baseline measurements, 7 days during post measurements	The workers will rate their musculoskeletal pain in the lower back after each working day for one week. The measurement will be repeated at the end of the intervention to assess any changes in the experience of musculoskeletal pain. The question assessing musculoskeletal pain in the lower back area is phrased as "how much pain did you have in your lower back at the end of the working day?" (Translated from Norwegian).

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Between group changes in the composition of time spent standing, arms elevated and trunk inclined	7 days during baseline measurements, 7 days during post measurements	The difference in physical behavior composition from baseline measurements to post measurements between control and intervention group. The specific variables will be time spent standing, arms elevated, and trunk inclined.
Between group changes in fatigue at end of shift	7 days during baseline measurements, 7 days during post measurements	The difference between intervention and control group from pre- to post-measurements in how fatigued the workers were at the end of the shift.

Trial Locations

Locations (11)

Saupstad hjemmetjeneste; 🇳🇴 Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway

Lade hjemmetjeneste; 🇳🇴 Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway

Strinda Hjemmetjeneste; 🇳🇴 Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway

Bergheim hjemmetjeneste; 🇳🇴 Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway

Nidarvoll hjemmetjeneste; 🇳🇴 Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway

Spongdal hjemmetjeneste; 🇳🇴 Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway

Strindheim hjemmetjeneste; 🇳🇴 Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway

Valentinlyst hjemmetjeneste; 🇳🇴 Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway

Heimdal Hjemmetjeneste; 🇳🇴 Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway

Klæbu hjemmetjeneste; 🇳🇴 Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway

Nidelven hjemmetjeneste; 🇳🇴 Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway