“Overworking to death” is a phenomenon that has been noticeable in developing countries. The cause of death is mainly through ischemic strokes. While the victims’ occupations differed, they all shared a common characteristic, being positioned in a sedentary work, ranging from IT workers to doctors. This project’s aim was to develop a product that prevented or decreased the strokes that derived from sedentary overwork. This was mainly tackled by preventing one of the three causes of developing blood props, slowed blood flow. In order to gather rich data of the phenomenon, a qualitative study was conducted in China, during two months. By doing an extensive structured sampling, information rich data could be gathered during a short period of time. Data were derived from observations, questionnaires and an interview, which then was interpreted to customer needs and the final product specification. The final product became a trouser with an in built dynamic compression mechanic, that can compress the veins mostly during sitting activities, in order to prevent blood stasis. The compression mechanic works like the Chinese finger trap; compressing the calves while sitting and stretching the legs forward. It is made only out of polysaccharides fibres; cotton and corn.
As home working becomes more common, employers may struggle to provide health promotion interventions that can successfully bridge the gap between employees' intentions to engage in healthier behaviors and actual action. Based on past evidence that action planning can successfully encourage the adoption of healthier behaviors, this mixed-methods study of a web-based self-help intervention incorporated a randomized planning trial that included quantitative measures of engagement and follow-up qualitative interviews with a subsample of participants. Participants either (a) selected a movement plan for incorporating a series of 2-min exercise videos into their work week to break up sedentary time and a balanced meal plan with recipe cards for a week's lunches and dinners or (b) received access to these resources without a plan. Selecting a movement plan was more effective at increasing engagement with the web resources compared to the no-plan condition. In the follow-up interviews, participants indicated that the plan helped to remind participants to engage with the resources and made it simpler for them to follow the guidance for exercises and meals. Ease of use and being able to fit exercises and meals around work tasks were key factors that facilitated uptake of the resources, while lack of time and worries about how colleagues would perceive them taking breaks to use the resources were barriers to uptake. Participants' self-efficacy was associated with general resource use but not plan adherence. Overall, including plans with online self-help resources could enhance their uptake.
Objectives To evaluate the effectiveness of a brief intervention about early identification of work-related stress combined with feedback at consultation with a general practitioner (GP) on the number of self-reported sick leave days. Design Randomised controlled trial. Prospective analyses of self-reported sick leave data collected between November 2015 and January 2017. Setting Seven primary healthcare centres in western Sweden. Participants The study included 271 employed, non-sick-listed patients aged 18-64 years seeking care for mental and/or physical health complaints. Of these, 132 patients were allocated to intervention and 139 patients to control. Interventions The intervention group received a brief intervention about work-related stress, including training for GPs, screening of patients' work-related stress, feedback to patients on screening results and discussion of measures at GP consultation. The control group received treatment as usual. Outcome measures The number of self-reported gross sick leave days and the number of self-reported net sick leave days, thereby also considering part-time sick leave. Results At 6 months' follow-up, 220/271 (81%) participants were assessed, while at 12 months' follow-up, 241/271 (89%) participants were assessed. At 6-month follow-up, 59/105 (56%) in the intervention group and 61/115 (53%) in the control group reported no sick leave. At 12-month follow-up, the corresponding numbers were 61/119 (51%) and 57/122 (47%), respectively. There were no statistically significant differences between the intervention group and the control group in the median number of self-reported gross sick leave days and the median number of self-reported net sick leave days. Conclusions The brief intervention showed no effect on the numbers of self-reported sick leave days for patients seeking care at the primary healthcare centres. Other actions and new types of interventions need to be explored to address patients' perceiving of ill health due to work-related stress.
The rapid pace of digitalisation provides many smarter and more efficient ways of interacting with the world, but may also lead to the exclusion of some groups. Senior citizens are one of these groups at risk. Taking the European Digital Competence Framework for Citizens as a starting point, we investigate digital survival skills for the elderly. Data was collected from digital education workshops for senior citizens organized jointly between Telia, Swedish municipalities, and the researchers. We use content analysis to understand seniors’ perceptions of which competences they need to survive in an increasingly digital environment and provide a version of the Competence Framework targeted at senior citizen inclusion. Lessons for inclusion initiatives are drawn from the results.
The aim of the study is to describe disability among younger stroke patients by analyzing activity and participation and the environmental aspect as well as to compare assessed and self-perceived problems after stroke. International Classification of Functioning and Health (ICF) is a tool that provides a scientific basis for understanding and studying health and health-related states. ICF core sets have been developed to increase the usefulness of ICF in everyday practice and were gathered for 71 younger persons with stroke by interviews. Self-perceived problems were assessed with the Stroke Impact Scale. The data are presented by their most common categories in activity and participation and environmental factors. The ICF core sets and the SIS identified different things as being the most difficult. The problems that are most obvious in an assessment are activity and participation and the environmental factors are more difficult to assess. The study shows that there are broad spectra of problems among younger stroke patients mainly identified in the area of activity and participation. Assessed and perceived problems are not always the same, which is of clinical importance.
Registered nurses and midwives are in short supply and have among the highest rates of sick leave in the global workforce. The aim of this study was therefore to explore and gain a deeper understanding of how nurses and midwives experience their everyday work, with a view toward promoting and sustaining their work-related health. Nine registered nurses and four registered midwives working in hospitals and community healthcare facilities in Sweden were interviewed. The interviews were analyzed using content analysis. This study is reported in accordance with COREQ. One main category emerged: ‘Quality of organizational and collegial support and opportunities to facilitate recovery, health, and patient care’. From this category, four generic categories describing the overall experiences of registered nurses and midwives could be discerned. Based on these results, it is recommended that employers adopt a systematic health-promotive approach to foster and maintain the workplace health of registered nurses and midwives.