STOPFLU: Is it Possible to Reduce the Number of Days Off in Office Work by Improved Hand-hygiene?

February 6, 2012 updated by: Tapani Hovi, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare
Improved hand hygiene is known to reduce transmission of both respiratory (RTI) and gastrointestinal infections (GTI) under "semi-closed" conditions such as hospitals, day-care centres and schools. It is not known if similar interventions would have the desired effect in a regular office work. This study is aiming to investigate this possibility by recruiting volunteers from several companies in the Helsinki Region. The two intervention groups will receive detailed instructions e.g. for proper coughing and sneezing, and for regular cleaning of hands with either standard liquid soap or with alcohol-based gel rubbing. Third group will serve as the control and is advised not to change their previous behaviour in this respect. The participants will report weekly possible RTI or GTI symptoms and related days off through internet. The study is planned to run about 18 months to cover the seasonal variation of the epidemics of the causative different viruses.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

It is common knowledge that both respiratory tract infections (RTI) and gastrointestinal infections (GTI) cause a large part of short periods of days off from work, day care and school. In addition, because of the generally mild nature of the diseases, especially adults often come to work in spite of symptoms, and may therefore initiate transmission of infection among their colleagues. The chain of events from exposure to a pathogenic virus to subsequent infection and staying home because of infectious disease is a very complicated one, and is affected by many factors potentially causing variation, such as the multitude of causative agents, different individual histories of infections, variability of inter-personal contacts in work and various working- team feelings -influenced thresholds for staying home etc. Therefore, we aim to recruit at least 24 operationally distinct volunteer groups, each including at least 50 persons, and to continue the intervention about 18 months.

A virus transmission "risk-index" will be calculated for each group based on potential participant questionnaires enquiring, among other things, about numbers and ages of children, their possible out-of-home day care, personal properties such as smoking, chronic diseases, and potential differences in contacts during daily work. The 24 groups will be divided in groups of three most similar ones, and members each triplet then randomised in one the intervention groups or the control (see brief summary).

Data collection is based on self-reporting through Monday-morning electronic reports using a standard form. The from is enquiring about possible exposure to persons suffering from RTI or GTI, and possible own symptoms of the same diseases during the preceding 7 day period (including weekends and other holidays). The form will require daily records offering all possible combinations of the following categories: healthy-with symptoms, working normally-day off, own disease-child ill-other reason for day off.

Etiology of the symptoms will not be searched for on individual basis in this study but a connection to RTI virus epidemiology is built by a sentinel surveillance, where occupational health clinics located in the premises of the participating companies send a standard number of weekly specimens collected from employees visiting the clinic. For possible GTI outbreaks a standard outbreak investigation principle will be followed, including 3-5 specimens. from typical patients will be collected. Common causative agents of the diseases will be searched for using real-time PCR techniques.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

683

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Finland
      • Helsinki, Finland, 00271
        • National Institute for Health and Wellfare (THL)

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 65 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Volunteers working in defined units

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Persons with open wounds or chronic eczema in hands

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Factorial Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: Hand washing
Instructions for proper coughing and sneezing, and for reduced hand shaking; frequent hand washing in office and at home
Behavioral: Hand washing
Instructions for proper coughing and sneezing, and for reduced hand shaking, frequent hand washing in office and at home
Active Comparator: Disinfectant rubbing
Instructions for proper coughing and sneezing, and for reduced hand shaking; frequent rubbing of hands with alcohol containing disinfectant in office and at home
Behavioral: Disinfectant rubbing
Instructions for proper coughing and sneezing, and for reduced hand shaking; frequent rubbing of hands with alcohol containing disinfectant in office and at home
No Intervention: Control
No change in hygiene behaviour

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Cumulative Number of Reported Days-off Episodes in the Arm Due to Own Infectious Disease Over the Total Number of Follow-up Weeks in the Arm
Time Frame: At the end of the entire study period (16 months)
Participants reported weekly through an internet questionnaire symptoms of respiratory tract (RTI) or gastrointestinal tract infections (GTI) as well as whether they were working (if expected) or not, daily for the previous calendar week. Individual weekly reports were combined in a single continuum and successive days with both symptoms and absence from work were designated as days-off episodes due to own infectious disease. Number of these episodes in each trial arm was calculated and for the respective proportion, was divided by the total number of weekly reports collected in the arm.
At the end of the entire study period (16 months)
Cumulative Number of Reported Episodes of Infectious Disease in the Arm Over the Total Number of Follow-up Weeks in the Arm
Time Frame: At the end of the study period (16 months)
Participants reported weekly through an internet questionnaire symptoms of respiratory tract (RTI) or gastrointestinal tract infections (GTI). Individual weekly reports were combined in a single continuum and successive days with either RTI or GTI symptoms were designated as disease episodes due. Numbers of RTI, GTI and either episodes in each trial arm were calculated, and for the respective proportion, were divided by the total number of weekly reports collected in the arm.
At the end of the study period (16 months)

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare

Collaborators

Finnish Institute of Occupational Health
Finnish Work Environment Fund
Berner Oy
Farmos Oy
Kesko Oyj
Nordea Bank Finland Plc
Outokumpu
Outokumpu Technogy Oyj
Suomen Osuuskauppojen Keskuskunta (SOK)
S-Pankki

Investigators

  • Study Director: Tapani Hovi, MD PhD, National Public Health Institute, Finland

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

January 1, 2009

Primary Completion (Actual)

July 1, 2010

Study Completion (Actual)

December 1, 2011

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

January 12, 2009

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 12, 2009

First Posted (Estimate)

January 13, 2009

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

March 8, 2012

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 6, 2012

Last Verified

February 1, 2012

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • KTL460-8

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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