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Varela-Mato, V., Godfree, K., Adem, A., Blake, H., Bartle, C., Daly, G., Hassard, J. 
ORCID: 0000-0003-3662-052X, Kneller, R., Meyer, C., Russell, S., Marwaha, S., Kershaw, C., Newman, K. ORCID: 0000-0002-3611-6764, Yarker, J., Thomson, L. and Munir, F.,
2022.
Protocol for a feasibility randomised controlled study of a multicomponent intervention to promote a sustainable return to work of workers on long-term sick leave — PROWORK: PROmoting a Sustainable and Healthy Return to WORK.
Pilot and Feasibility Studies, 8 (1): 188.
Abstract
Background: The cost of sickness absence has major social, psychological and financial implications for individuals and organisations. Return-to-work (RTW) interventions that support good quality communication and contact with the workplace can reduce the length of sickness absence by between 15 and 30 days. However, initiatives promoting a sustainable return to work for workers with poor mental health on long-term sickness absence across small, medium and large enterprises (SMEs and LEs) are limited. This paper describes the protocol of a pilot randomised controlled trial (RCT) to test the feasibility of implementing a RTW intervention across SMEs and LEs across all sectors.
Methods and design: A two-arm feasibility RCT with a 4-month intervention will be conducted in SMEs and LE enterprises from the Midlands region, UK. At least 8 organisations (4 controls and interventions), and at least 60 workers and/or managers, will be recruited and randomised into the intervention and control group (30 interventions, 30 controls). Workers on long-term sickness absence (LTSA) (between 8 and 50 days) and managers with a worker on LTSA will be eligible to participate. The intervention is a behavioural change programme, including a managers and workers RTW toolkit, focused on supporting sickness absence and RTW through the provision of knowledge, problem-solving, action planning, goal setting and positive communication that leads to a sustainable RTW. Organisations assigned to the control group will continue with their usual practice. Measurements of mental health, RTW, work outcomes, quality-of-life, workplace support and communication and other demographic data will be taken at baseline, 2 months and 4 months. Feasibility will be assessed based on recruitment, retention, attrition, completion of measures and intervention compliance for which specific process and research outcomes have been established. A process evaluation will explore the experiences and acceptability of the intervention components and evaluation measures. Exploratory economic evaluation will be conducted to further inform a definitive trial.
Discussion: This is a novel intervention using a worker-manager approach to promote a sustainable return to work of workers on long-term sick leave due to poor mental wellbeing. If this intervention is shown to be feasible, the outcomes will inform a larger scale randomised control trial.
Trial registration: ISRCTN90032009 (retrospectively registered, date registered 15th December 2020)
| Item Type: | Journal article | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Publication Title: | Pilot and Feasibility Studies | ||||||
| Creators: | Varela-Mato, V., Godfree, K., Adem, A., Blake, H., Bartle, C., Daly, G., Hassard, J., Kneller, R., Meyer, C., Russell, S., Marwaha, S., Kershaw, C., Newman, K., Yarker, J., Thomson, L. and Munir, F. | ||||||
| Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC | ||||||
| Date: | 2022 | ||||||
| Volume: | 8 | ||||||
| Number: | 1 | ||||||
| Identifiers: |
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| Rights: | © 2022 BioMed Central Ltd unless otherwise stated. Part of Springer Nature. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. | ||||||
| Divisions: | Schools > School of Social Sciences | ||||||
| Record created by: | Linda Sullivan | ||||||
| Date Added: | 30 Aug 2022 09:43 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 30 Aug 2022 09:43 | ||||||
| URI: | https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/46929 |
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