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.
Research shows that the workplace is an important arena where much can be done to promote a sustainable working life while maintaining health. However, there is a lack of knowledge that is specific to dental care with regard to managers' and employees' perceptions of the work environment, systematic work environment management and work adaptations, as well as what measures in the workplace are necessary to create a health-promoting and sustainable work environment. There is also a lack of knowledge regarding what support employees and managers need in the systematic work environment management and what individual workplace adaptations that can work within dental care organizations.
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.
The overall aim of this study is to investigate how work with physical demands affects the physical capacity, work ability, labor market affiliation, pain and self-reported health in the oldest group of workers. Following research questions are to be answered: 1. How high physical work demands affects muscle strength in 55-70-year-old workers and how obesity in combination with high physical work exposure influences muscle strength, work ability, cardiac function, and self-reported health? 2. Which parameters are important for work ability and how does the exposure of high physical workload affect the work ability over time in 55-70-year-old workers? 3. By exploring the underlying mechanism of pain among 55+ year old workers, how is pain associated with work ability, BMI and physical capacity?
The overarching goal is to develop, refine and disseminate a comprehensive, easily accessible and effective Total Worker Health (TWH) program for wildland firefighters (WFF). The term Total Worker Health® (TWH) (NIOSH) refers to the synergistic combination of 1) health promotion (e.g., healthy nutrition, exercise, restorative sleep), 2) worker safety issues, such as protective equipment and hazard control, merged with 3) work organization change to support and promote TWH.
The aim of this observational study is to investigate the association between mid-life changes in cardiorespiratory fitness and the risk of breast cancer incidence and mortality among Swedish women. The main questions to answer are: - Are changes in cardiorespiratory fitness associated with the risk of being diagnosed or dying from/with breast cancer later in life? Participants performed at least two occupational health assessment tests, which consisted of a submaximal ergometer cycle test, measurement of body mass and height to calculate BMI, and a questionnaires on physical and life style habits.
As part of a Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF project (On-site multi-component intervention to improve productivity and reduce the economic and personal burden of neck pain in Swiss Office-Workers, NEXpro = Neck EXercises for productivity, SNSF no. 32003B_182389, BASEC no. 2019-01678), the investigators first developed a physiotherapeutic exercise intervention to improve the strength and mobility of the neck muscles. In the SNSF project NEXpro, the intervention took place on-site in the office. However, in view of the digital transformation, it is important to adapt the intervention delivery method to the new virtual work setting. The aims of the present project are therefore to implement, further develop and contextually adapt the exercise intervention in order to reduce musculoskeletal complaints and to reduce health-related presenteeism. The final product is a user-friendly virtual 6-week short exercise intervention that employees of the University of Bern can use independently, regardless of time and place. The effectiveness of the newly developed short exercise intervention (pain reduction, reduction of presenteeism) will be assessed during a short pilot phase.
Using a stepped wedge design (prospective cohort with concurrent controls) among six paired, elementary schools, investigators will implement and evaluate the Educator Well-being Program. The investigators will evaluate whether the process improves organizational-level factors, teacher mental well-being (stress, depression and anxiety symptoms).
Globally, work-related musculoskeletal symptoms (WRMSs) have become one of the major public health issues, with musculoskeletal problems contributing to the largest proportion of lost work productivity. Literature has reported that grassroots working-class workers (also known as low-skilled workers) are the most vulnerable group to WRMSs as their work mostly exposes them to the identified risk factors. However, not many intervention studies have been conducted for low-skilled workers to prevent WRMSs. Based on the concept of the multidimensional approach from the literature, and the project team's previous evidence-based research results, this project will modify the project team's face-to-face evidence-based musculoskeletal health promotion program to an online mode with 4 weekly 45-minute workshops for low-skilled workers in the community under the Covid-19 pandemic situation. Thus, the project has the following specific objectives: (i) To determine the feasibility of conducting the proposed online program (ii) To examine the acceptability and satisfaction of the online program from the workers' perspectives (iii) To evaluate the potential effects of the online program on the primary outcomes: compliance with exercise regimes, improvement of musculoskeletal literacy, and reduction of the number of body parts with WRMSs (iv) To evaluate the potential effects of the online program on the secondary outcomes: reduction of adverse workstyle, improvement of exercise self-efficacy, mental health, body mass index, hip-waist ratio, and blood pressure measurements
There are several situations in the workplace in which both healthcare workers and patients are at risk of injury. Frequent patient transfers, heavy lifting and patient mobilization are proven risk factors for musculoskeletal disorders among healthcare workers. Falls and patient transfers are frequently reported causes of patient injuries. Swedish occupational safety and health legislation and the Patient Safety Act require employers to provide good, safe care and to conduct risk assessments to prevent risks and injuries in the healthcare sector. It has been suggested that a combination of workplace interventions is needed to facilitate safe patient handling and movement and to prevent musculoskeletal disorders and injuries among healthcare workers and patients. The main aim of the cluster randomized and controlled trial (RCT) is to evaluate a multifactorial intervention strategy that includes risk assessment instruments as well as guidelines and training. This strategy will be compared with a single intervention strategy for safe patient handling and movement in workplaces in the Swedish regional and municipal healthcare system. All healthcare workers in the care units recruited to this RCT will be invited to participate. The study will evaluate the intervention strategies with regard to primary outcome measures given equal priority according to a hybrid 2 design of the RCT. These are: 1) the implementation process (acceptability, appropriateness and feasibility), here called the implementation outcome, and 2) the effect of the applied strategies (measured with regard to the workplace safety climate and additional questions about safety for patient handling and movement), here called intervention effectiveness. This RCT is part of the Swedish Patient and Workers Safety Study (PAWSS). The aim of the PAWSS project is to contribute to a regional and municipal healthcare that is evidence-based and organized for both patient safety and a safe working environment for healthcare workers. The long-term goal is to facilitate safe patient handling and movement practices which prevent both care injuries and work injuries.