Clinical Trial: SMART Supervisor Training Program to Prevent Work Disability
Study Status: Recruiting
Recruit Status: Recruiting
Study Type: Interventional
Official Title: A Supervisor Training Program for Work Disability Prevention: A Cluster RCT
Brief Summary:
Supervisors of injured workers play a key role in preventing prolonged work absences. Providing supervisors with tools to improve their response to musculoskeletal and other workplace injuries or illnesses may improve worker health and disability outcomes.
The primary objective of this research study is to determine the effectiveness of the supervisor training program, the SMART Supervisor Training Program, on reducing the total duration of workers' lost-time claims. The secondary objectives are 1) to determine the effectiveness of the training program on reducing the cumulative incidence of workers' lost-time injuries and sick leave days; 2) to determine if implementation of the training program is associated with improvements in hypothesized mediating variables, such as attitudes toward job accommodations, response to workplace injury, and communication with employees and healthcare providers; 3) to investigate the implementation of the training program by conducting a process evaluation.
The investigators hypothesize that:
- the duration of lost-time claims for workers working under supervisors receiving the training program will be shorter than the duration of lost-time claims for workers with supervisors in the control group;
- the cumulative incidence of lost-time injuries and sick leave days will be lower in the group receiving the training program compared to the control group;
- the training program will be associated with increased knowledge, response, communication and changed attitudes towards workplace accommodation.
This research is of significance to North American employers and compensation systems because t
Detailed Summary:
This study is a multi-centred, cluster randomized, controlled, single-blinded, fixed sample trial.
The project will involve several large Canadian and American employers. Participating work units within the organizations will be randomly assigned to either the training program (intervention group) or not (control group). Randomizing geographically separate work units works best to prevent contamination of supervisors selected to be the control group. However, the employer will decide what constitutes a work unit (e.g., separate building, division, etc.). The work units will be pair-matched into clusters based on number of employees, gender proportions, and work tasks as best as possible. A total of 86 work units (43 work unit pairs) including approximately 350 supervisors is required to achieve the primary objective, with fewer work units and supervisors required to achieve the secondary objectives. Within each cluster, one work unit will receive the training program and the other will act as the control. All supervisors within those work units randomized to receive the intervention will attend a four-hour supervisor training session. Before training is administered to the randomly assigned work units, all supervisors (intervention group and control group) will receive an email with an attached information pamphlet about principles for successful return to work. The purpose of the information pamphlet is to minimize the Hawthorne Effect, whereby subjects change their behaviour in response to the knowledge that they are being studied or monitored.
The work disability outcomes (duration of lost-time injuries in days, and cumulative incidence of lost-time injuries and sick leave days) will be determined from workplace records, and outcomes data will be extracted and analyzed at the level of the work unit. Since the interventi
Sponsor: Lakehead University
Current Primary Outcome: Total duration of workers' lost-time claims due to injury or illness for existing and new claims [ Time Frame: 1 year period post-randomization ]
Original Primary Outcome: Same as current
Current Secondary Outcome:
- Cumulative incidence of workers' lost-time injuries [ Time Frame: 1 year period post-randomization ]
- Total number of workers' sick leave days [ Time Frame: 1 year period post-randomization ]
- Job Accommodation Scale (JAS) [ Time Frame: Baseline, 3 months, 6 months ]
- Supervisor's Role in Rehabilitation Questionnaire [ Time Frame: Baseline, 3 months, 6 months ]
- Behaviour Measure for Supervisors to Support Return to Work (SSRW) questionnaire [ Time Frame: 6 months ]
- Supervisor Support Scale from the "Readiness for RTW Study" [ Time Frame: Baseline, 3 months, 6 months ]
- Supervisory Behavior Questionnaire [ Time Frame: Baseline, 3 months, 6 months ]
- Supervisor and Healthcare Provider Interactions questionnaire [ Time Frame: Baseline, 3 months, 6 months ]
- Global Work Safety Climate (GWSC) Scale [ Time Frame: Baseline, 6 months ]
- Organizational Policies and Practices (OPP) Scale (13 questions about organizational disability management policies and practices) [ Time Frame: Baseline ]
- Supervisor Autonomy for Provision of Job Accommodations questions [ Time Frame: Baseline ]
- Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ) [ Time Frame: Baseline, 3 months ]
- Physical Workload Questionnaire (PWQ) [ Time Frame: Baseline ]
- Training program reach (proportion of the target group that participates) [ Time Frame: Up to 1 month post-randomization ]
- Training program dose delivered (efforts of the trainers) [ Time Frame: Up to 1 month post-randomization ]
- Training program dose received (extent to which the supervisors have followed the training) [ Time Frame: Up to 1 month post-randomization ]
- Training program fidelity (extent to which the training program was delivered according to the protocol) [ Time Frame: Up to 1 month post-randomization ]
Original Secondary Outcome: Same as current
Information By: Lakehead University
Dates:
Date Received: December 2, 2014
Date Started: December 2014
Date Completion: December 2017
Last Updated: September 12, 2016
Last Verified: September 2016
