Participatory Intervention Among Construction Workers (IRMA11)

National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Denmark

Status: Completed

Conditions: Musculoskeletal Disorders

Treatments: Behavioral: Participatory Intervention; Behavioral: Control

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02498197

IRMA11

Details and patient eligibility

About

There is high prevalence of back pain and neck-shoulder pain among blue collar workers. Physical excessive exposures such as heavy lifting or working with a bended or twisted back are independent risk factors for back pain among workers in the construction industry. Participatory ergonomic initiatives increase the success of interventions aimed at reducing physical excessive exposures.

The objectives are in two phases to; 1) determine which work-tasks in selected job-groups involve the highest load of the back and shoulders during a normal working day (using EMG, Actigraphs, Video). 2) investigate whether a participatory intervention can reduce physical workloads, drawing on information from objective measurements from phase 1.

Enrollment: 80 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 67 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Full time construction workers who are member of a labor union and can read and understand Danish.
• The type of work must include manual work that involves lifting

Exclusion criteria

• life-threatening diseases
• pregnancy
• hypertension >160/100 mmHg
• unable to participate in the measurements

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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80 participants in 2 patient groups

Participatory Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Participatory intervention with workers and their leaders. Workshops with presentation of work tasks with excessive physical load and subsequently plans to reduce these loads

Treatment:

Behavioral: Participatory Intervention

Control

Active Comparator group

Description:

Receive standard information about correct lifting technics, use of assistive technology, and ergonomics

Treatment:

Behavioral: Control