Attendance barriers experienced by female health care workers voluntarily participating in a multi-component health promotion programme at the workplace

Pia Maria Ilvig, Thomas Viskum Gjelstrup Bredahl, Just Bendix Justesen, Dorrie Jones, Jonna Benner Lundgaard, Karen Søgaard, Jeanette Reffstrup Christensen, Pia Maria Ilvig, Thomas Viskum Gjelstrup Bredahl, Just Bendix Justesen, Dorrie Jones, Jonna Benner Lundgaard, Karen Søgaard, Jeanette Reffstrup Christensen

Abstract

Background: Studies have shown that Workplace Health Promoting Programmes (WHPP) can facilitate healthier behaviour. Despite the benefits achieved from participating in a WHPP, a systematic review showed that only 10-50% of the employees participated and a challenge was lack of participation. Previous studies stress that understanding the barriers that prevent participants from attending WHPPs are important for designing highly effective interventions. To exploit the potential of a WHPP, it requires a deep insight into the attendance barriers experienced by the participants who voluntarily sign-up for a WHPP; and particularly those who want to stay in the programme but are prevented from participating in it regularly. Thus, the aim of this study was to identify and explore attendance barriers experienced by female Health Care Workers (HCWs) who voluntarily participated in a weekly one-hour multi-component training session, within a WHPP, over a one-year period.

Methods: This study was carried out within a RCT named FRIDOM (FRamed Intervention to Decrease Occupational Muscle pain) and was designed as a single-case study with an inductive approach for analysing the content of in-depth semi-structured qualitative interviews. Data was collected at two home care workplaces and two retirement homes in Denmark. Nine HCWs from the intervention group were selected as participants in the present study.

Results: The attendance barriers identified, consisted of three main themes and six related sub-themes: 1) organizational factors (work inflexibility, lack of support from team leaders), 2) intervention factors (training sessions organized outside normal work hours, incongruence between information received and reality, content and intensity of the program) and 3) individual factors (personal factors).

Conclusion: Organizational and intervention factors are the two most important attendance barriers in future WHPPs. To overcome these barriers; training sessions should be organized within or in connection with work hours, support should be secured from team management and work shifts should be planned to enable attendance for all participants. Furthermore, the attendance barriers may be minimized by including participants in the decision-making process. This relates to both the content and intensity of the intervention, not only in the planning stage but throughout the intervention process.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov. NCT02843269 - 06.27.2016 - retrospectively registered.

Keywords: Adherence; Compliance; Exercise; Maintained effect; Qualitative interviews; Sickness absenteeism; WHPP; Worksite.

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The FRIDOM program was approved by the The Regional Scientific Ethical Committees for Southern Denmark – number S20130157 and was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki declaration. The SPIRIT 2013 Checklist was thoroughly reviewed, and the guidelines were followed. The feasibility and RCT parts were retrospectively registered in the Clinical Trial Registration – number NCT02843269. To reach all eligible participants, 11 introductory one-hour meetings were held in the end of 2013. After the meetings, the employees filled out a screening questionnaire including the question “Do you want to participate in the FINALE-study”. Employees who did not attend the meetings, were given written information and screening questionnaires from their closest manager. Questionnaires and possible consent were returned in a sealed envelope. At the baseline test, all employees who wanted to participate filled out a declaration of consent. The participants took a copy home and the originals were placed in a locked file cabinet at the university. The participants were informed, both verbally and in writing, that their consent could be redrawn at any time and without any questions asked. This information was repeated when asked if the participants wanted to participate in an interview. All nine participants consented yet again.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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