Nurses' Foot Health and Work Well-being

Nurses' Foot Health and Work Well-being - Development and Testing of an Electronic Foot Health Program

This study supports and promotes work well-being of nursing personnel from the perspective of foot health in health care organizations. Half of the participants will receive an electronic foot health education program to improve their foot self-care knowledge, while the other will receive anything. The outcomes of this project include recommendations and tested educational program to occupational health care for improving foot health of nurses.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Foot; Nurses
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Foot Health Promoting Program

Detailed Description

An electronic Foot Health Promoting Program (FHPP) will be tested with nurses using quasi-experimental study design.

The participants will be assigned to experimental (N=130) and comparison (N=130) groups. The experimental group will receive an electronic intervention (Foot Health Promotion Program) for 8 weeks consisting of foot self-care guidance (skin and nail self-care), foot exercises, foot stretching and professional footwear guidance. Detailed components of the intervention will be produced on the bases of survey (part 1) results. The intervention (Figure 3) will be electronic via internet (Moodle platform) where a material package of foot health care will be delivered. Each participant will receive a user account to platform. The platform is divided into four main themes all related to foot health. Each theme consists of two topics of foot health. Each topic includes lectures (delivered via Adobe Presenter) and self-directed learning where participant will go through a list of links to websites (will be evaluated with certain criteria beforehand) and watch videos about foot self-care. In addition, the learning will be evaluated using four individual tasks related to foot self-care. By responding to task a participant will receive an example of the correct answer and using that he/she can evaluate own response and learn by that. Participants' use of different links (quantity) and their paths in the intervention platform will be calculated and analysed. The participants will be tested before the intervention (baseline) and one month (follow-up 1) and four (follow-up 2) months after the intervention. The primary outcome is foot health knowledge and secondary outcomes are foot health, musculoskeletal problems, work ability, health-related quality of life and work satisfaction. Hypothesis is: Increasing nurses' knowledge about foot health will improve their foot health and work ability. Ultimate goal is to develop tools for the occupational health care and improve the attention paid to feet as part of the work ability among nurses.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 56
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Finland
  • Turku, Finland, 20520
    • University of Turku

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 65 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• nurses (registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, public health nurses) working in the operating theatre

Exclusion Criteria:

• other health care professionals

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Non-Randomized
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Foot Health Promoting Program; The experimental group will receive an electronic intervention (Foot Health Promotion Program, FHPP) for 8 weeks consisting of foot self-care guidance (skin and nail self-care), foot exercises, foot stretching and professional footwear guidance. Each topic includes lectures (delivered via Adobe Presenter) and self-directed learning where participant will go through a list of links to websites and watch videos about foot self-care. In addition, the learning will be evaluated using four individual tasks related to foot self-care.	Behavioral: Foot Health Promoting Program; An electronic intervention for 8 weeks consisting of foot self-care guidance targeted to nurses.; Other Names: FHPP
No Intervention: Comparison group; The comparison group will not receive any instructions or guidance for foot self-care but participant in the comparison group will complete the same measurement points than experimental group. After the study, the comparison group will also receive the same intervention than experimental group (if effective).

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change from Baseline Foot self-care knowledge at 4 and 12 weeks	Measured with Foot Self-Care Knowledge Questionnaire including 11 questions using a "true," "false," or "don't know" response options.	baseline, 4 weeks, 12 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change from Baseline Foot health at 4 and 12 weeks	Self-reported foot health questionnaire (SFHQ) will be modified for this study. It will measure self-reported foot health consisting of five subscales: skin, nails, foot structure, foot pain and professional footwear.	baseline, 4 weeks, 12 weeks
Change from Baseline Musculoskeletal Disorders at 4 and 12 weeks	Nordic Questionnaire measures musculoskeletal disorders in neck, shoulders, upper back, elbows, low back, wrists/hands, hips/thighs, knees and ankles/feet.	baseline, 4 weeks, 12 weeks
Change from Baseline Foot health Status at 4 and 12 weeks	Foot Health Status Questionnaire measures foot health related to quality of life. There are 4 subscales: foot pain (4 questions), foot function (4 questions), footwear (3 questions), and general foot health (2 questions).	baseline, 4 weeks, 12 weeks
Change from Baseline Work Ability Score at 4 and 12 weeks	Work Ability Score, assesses workers self-assessed work ability (one item with 0-10 scale)	baseline, 4 weeks, 12 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Turku
• Collaborators: Turku University Hospital; Finnish Work Environment Fund
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Minna Stolt, PhD, University of Turku

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Stolt M, Katajisto J, Peltonen J, Suhonen R, Leino-Kilpi H. Development and testing of a new electronic foot health promotion programme on nurses' foot self-care. BMC Nurs. 2020 Apr 19;19:29. doi: 10.1186/s12912-020-00423-z. eCollection 2020.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): January 1, 2017
• Primary Completion (Actual): November 29, 2017
• Study Completion (Actual): December 31, 2017

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: April 5, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 11, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): April 17, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): May 3, 2018
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 2, 2018
• Last Verified: May 1, 2018

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: nurses; foot health; work well-being
• Other Study ID Numbers: 116464

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No