Högskolan i Skövde

Background: When designing, implementing, and evaluating a work site health promotion program, it is necessary to ensure that the program is evidence based. The present article aims to present in-depth information on the design of a longitudinal randomized controlled complementary intervention pilot study that follows the Consort recommendations to evaluate possible effects of a health promotive intervention in healthy workers.

Methods: Employees from four different workplaces were randomly assigned to one of the following groups: i) Massage and mental training (sitting in the armchair and receiving mechanical massage while listening to mental training programs, n=19), ii) Massage (sitting in the armchair and receiving mechanical massage only, n=19), iii) Mental training (sitting in the armchair and listening to mental training programs only, n=19), iv) Pause (sitting in the armchair but not receiving mechanical massage or listening to mental training programs, n=19), v) Control (not sitting in the armchair at all, n=17). The study lasted for eight weeks. Immediately before the randomization, after four weeks and after eight weeks the participants responded to statements from the Swedish Scale of Personality and had their heart rate, blood pressure and fingertip temperature measured.

Results: Receiving mechanical massage and listening to mental training programs, either separately or in combination, during working hours had some positive effects on the employees’ own evaluation of their health, as well as their heart rate, blood pressure and fingertip temperature. However, the intervention need to be evaluated further.

Conclusion: The approach described makes it possible to design, implement and evaluate a work site health promotion program, also on pilot-study level and these results should be seen as a first step towards larger randomized studies. This types of studies need to focus on healthy participants and special care should be taken to guarantee adequately powered study groups and their homogeneity.