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Completed

NCT Number: NCT05487027

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

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.

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Key information

Conditions

Occupational Exposure Arthralgia Back Pain Joint Diseases Low Back Pain Muscular Diseases Musculoskeletal Diseases Musculoskeletal Pain Neck Pain Neurologic Manifestations Pain Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms Shoulder Pain Signs and Symptoms Work-related Injury

Age range

18 year and older

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

Bergheim hjemmetjeneste, Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway

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About this study

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.

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: Yes

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

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

Treatment and study plan

Goldilocks work principle

Behavioral

Using the Goldilocks work principle we have tried to find the "just right" distribution of physical strain in the home care sector. This is an intervention to test if it possible to distribute the physical strain experienced in the home care sector in a way that may be more health promoting for the workers.

Primary outcomes

  1. Between group changes in musculoskeletal pain in the neck and shoulder from pre to post measurement

    Time frame: 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).

  2. in musculoskeletal pain in the lower back from pre to post measurement

    Time frame: 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 outcomes

  1. Between group changes in the composition of time spent standing, arms elevated and trunk inclined

    Time frame: 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.

  2. Between group changes in fatigue at end of shift

    Time frame: 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.

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Other

Collaborators

  • Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration
  • Trondheim Kommune

Registry information

Acronym: GoldiCare

Important dates

Study start
2022
Primary completion
2023
Study completion
2023
First posted
Aug 4, 2022
Registry last updated
Jun 6, 2023

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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