Design and conduct of occupational injury intervention studies: A review of evaluation strategies

Abstract

Occupational injuries continue to exact a great toll on American workers and their employers—the physical and financial costs are enormous. However, in the current political climate, few employers or regulatory agencies will implement injury prevention interventions without specific evidence of their effectiveness. This paper reviews the literature on the design, conduct, and evaluation of occupational injury interventions. Our review suggests that randomized controlled trials are rare and also notes that the quasi‐experimental studies in the literature often use the weakest designs. We recommend a hierarchical approach to evaluating occupational injury interventions—beginning with qualitative studies, following up with simple quasi‐experimental designs using historical controls, continuing with more elaborate quasi‐experimental designs comparing different firms' experience, and, when necessary, implementing randomized controlled trials. Am. J. Ind. Med. 32:164–179, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss Inc.

Locomotor training using a robotic device in patients with subacute spinal cord injury

“…Although simple quasi-experimental designs using historical controls has many weaknesses, it is an accepted approach in evaluation of occupational injury interventions. 26 In our study, however, both groups were treated in the same facility by the same multidisciplinary team, and the SCIM evaluation was done by a blinded observer to the allocated group.…”

A Participatory Workplace Intervention for Employees With Distress and Lost Time: A Feasibility Evaluation Within a Randomized Controlled Trial

“…Many randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have been conducted in the field of occupational health (OH), but in general, those trials provide little information about the content and degree of implementation of the interventions in question [1,2]. However, the implementation and feasibility aspects of interventions are of critical importance, since they address the issue of how easily an intervention can be implemented in practice and how well the intervention is received.…”

“…The aims of this study were (1) to describe the reach of the workplace intervention; (2) to describe whether the workplace intervention was implemented as planned, including a description of perceived barriers for implementation; (3) to describe the satisfaction and expectations of employees, supervisors, and OH professionals; and (4) to describe whether OH professionals reported the intention to use the workplace intervention in the future.…”

Methodological issues in evaluating workplace interventions to reduce work-related musculoskeletal disorders through mechanical exposure reduction

“…Randomized control trials are carried out to provide the most conclusive type of evidence, followed by quasi-experimental designs (24). Although more common in safety effectiveness research (25,26), randomized controlled trials with ergonomic intervention and individual randomization have contributed relevant evidence (27), and such trials are now underway at the workplace level (Riihimäki H, personal communication).…”

“…Griffiths (31) has delineated the limits of the natural science paradigm for organizational interventions and argued for observational designs with greater clarity in the conceptualization and examination of intervention processes. Reviewers coming from ergonomic and epidemiologic traditions have called for more adaptive quasi-experimental and observational designs (15,16,25,32) to provide evidence of the reduction of hazards to inform broad, population-level public health interventions (33).…”