View clinical trials related to Occupational Health.
Filter by:The evidence unequivocally supports the association between work environment and patient safety. The negative impact of working conditions on both employee health and quality of care highlights the potential benefits of integrating these areas. It is therefore suggested that integrated systematic occupational health and patient safety management are crucial in managing the challenges faced by healthcare services today. The project aims to assess the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a structured method for systematic and integrated occupational safety and health and patient safety management systems (SIOHPS). A process evaluation will be conducted alongside the main study to determine the intervention's specific outcomes and provide transferable guidance to a wider context. The intervention is designed to support both systematic occupational health and patient safety management systems using a Safety II-perspective. The intervention is comprised of several core components, including education to staff, support-functions and management, daily team reflections; as well as audit and feedback. A stepped wedge cluster-controlled design (SWD) will be used, with workplaces as clusters. The SWD will consist of three steps, with four clusters crossing over from the control to the intervention group at each step. All clusters will start as controls. At least twelve healthcare units with at least thirty employees per workplace from two different regions in Sweden will participate in the intervention. Workplaces that provide round-the-clock care are invited to participate in the study. Exclusion criteria are units with plans to implement any other occupational health and/or patient safety improvement work during the project period. At the individual level, inclusion criteria for employees include at least 50% of full-time work at the workplace. The SIOHPS project will contribute to the existing theory on safety culture interventions by considering the integration of these areas. The goal is to contribute to a safe environment for both employees and patients.
The U.S. registered nurse (RN) workforce is the largest in the Healthcare and Social Assistance Sector and is at high risk for injuries and errors due to poor sleep and fatigue. Shift work (i.e., nights, evenings, rotating shifts) can contribute to RNs not obtaining adequate, restful sleep. Work intensity, including heavy physical and emotional workloads of caring for critically ill patients, can contribute to job stress, resulting in spill-over effects at home when RNs experience difficulties falling and staying asleep. To address work and home sleep barriers, this project proposes the development and pilot testing of RN-SLEEP, a skill-building mobile application designed to improve sleep. RN-SLEEP will provide a convenient, flexible space to learn sleep-enhancing evidence-based shift work-specific strategies, and cognitive-behavioral methods, (e.g., goal setting, relaxation training). Using NIOSH's Research 2 Practice (R2P) approach, the study team will collaborate with participants (N=18-24) from an RN union to refine RN-SLEEP content, integrating current sleep literature (including National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health [NIOSH] material) with cognitive-behavioral based training. RN-SLEEP will be pilot-tested using a two-group pretest-posttest study design, comparing sleep outcome measures (duration, quality) of RN-SLEEP participant users (n=38) with participants from an education control group (n=38). Data trends on fatigue, what drives behavior change (beliefs and self-efficacy), and other sleep outcome measures (timing, regularity, efficiency, daytime sleepiness) will be explored. RN-SLEEP goals align with Healthy People 2030, NIOSH's strategic goal to promote safe and healthy work design and well-being through two NIOSH Healthcare and Social Assistance Sector/Healthy Work Design Cross-Sector (HCSA/HWD) intermediate goals. HWD goal 7.2A is to conduct intervention research addressing fatigue (poor sleep sequela) due to suboptimal work designs (shift work) in the healthcare industry. HCSA/HWD goal 7.12A prioritizes interventions designed to impact work and non-work contributors to safety and health. This RN-SLEEP intervention aims to improve sleep by building skills that help RNs overcome obstacles to sleep from work and home, thus improving health and safety. Immediate outputs include a mobile app, designed and tested in collaboration with RNs, to improve sleep. Study results will be disseminated through our union collaborators, nursing conferences and journal publications, and our University's NIOSH-sponsored Education and Research Center social media outlets. Intermediate outcomes include enhancing RN sleep through training rarely available in nursing schools and traditional hospital health and safety training programs. Improving sleep can reduce fatigue and may decrease occupational injuries and errors. RN-SLEEP is adaptable, where future versions could be modified to meet the needs of other HCSA workers (i.e., nursing aides) and workers in other industries (e.g., oil and gas) scheduled to work non-standard work hours. End outcomes include integrating RN-SLEEP into a broader hospital organization intervention to mitigate fatigue risks.