Workplace Intervention Among Pregnant Hospital Employees

Region MidtJylland Denmark

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Sick Leave; Midwifery; Pregnancy

Treatments: Other: Preventive sessions

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05621512

29-2019-03

Details and patient eligibility

About

The aim of this study is to reduce sick leave and improve wellbeing. This is measured as physical and mental health, general work ability, work-life balance, manager support and completed work adjustments among pregnant health care professionals. It is hypothesised that pregnant employees participating in preventive sessions with their manager and a midwife in addition to the hospital standard pregnancy policy management will have less sick leave and report better wellbeing compared to the reference group.

Full description

Sick leave during pregnancy is frequent and studies report proportions of employees on sick leave between 36-75%. Reasons for sick leave in early pregnancy are nausea, vomiting and dizziness whereas Braxton Hicks contractions, low back and pelvic girdle pain are more common in late pregnancy. Further, sick leave is strongly associated with working conditions and appropriate work adjustment.

The study design is cluster randomization with participation of all departments at Aarhus University Hospital (AUH), Denmark. Half of the departments are randomized to the intervention and the remaining to the reference group. The intervention group will receive a protocolized intervention with midwifery support as an add-on to usual practice. The reference group will receive protocolized usual practice.

Data are obtained from the hospital payment system and by survey (RedCap).

The sample size is calculated to find a difference of ≥ 7 days with a standard deviation of 25. To achieve a statistical power of 80% with a significance level of p ≤ 0.05 an estimated 202 participants will be required in each of the groups.

Enrollment: 404 estimated patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 20 to 45 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Pregnant employees working as health care professionals at Aarhus University Hospital

Exclusion criteria

• Gest. week > 20

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

404 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

The intervention implies a letter of invitation for a session between the employee, the department manager, and a midwife concerning workplace risk assessment and agreement on feasible work adjustments if necessary. A second session within gestational week 26-28 is scheduled to follow-up and readjust if necessary. A systematic frame for sessions is developed by the research team and conclusions from the sessions are registered within a piloted standardized template. The employee and the manager can initiate contact with the midwife at any time, e.g in case of new symptoms or discomfort and need for support or guidance. If sick leave is considered, a new session is recommended and may be scheduled at any time. To ensure transparency of guidance and workplace adjustments for other relevant healthcare professionals, the employee is asked to inform her general practitioner (GP) and midwife of the program.

Treatment:

Other: Preventive sessions

Usual practice

No Intervention group

Description:

Hospital pregnancy policy is usual practice and implies a meeting between the pregnant employee and her manager concerning an individual risk assessment. A risk assessment-template can be downloaded from the hospital website. If minimizing potential risks by adjustments is not possible the employee should be redeployed. If redeployment is not possible the pregnant employee may be absent due to pregnancy related symptoms. The pregnant employee is requested to inform her GP about agreements.