Interventions to reduce work-related musculoskeletal disorders

Explicit and implicit theories of change when designing and implementing preventive ergonomics interventions – a systematic literature review

“…We believe the dominance of interventions targeting individuals or groups to be representative of scientifically studied ergonomics interventions, since our search included even reference databases containing journals addressing management science and organizational issues. This belief is supported by similar observations in previous reviews of ergonomics interventions and their effects (42,46). The dominance may reflect a bias of both intervention ideas and selection of research issues among ergonomists towards a focus on the individual rather than the organization.…”

“…All reviewed studies but one reported that the intervention was, in some respect, successful, but none discussed this result in relation to a theory of change or the implemented strategy. Furthermore, the generally successful appearance of the interventions may be a result of reporting and publication bias, as noted in other intervention reviews (32,46,96), and thus not representative of the benefits of one theory above another. A possible association between the implemented theory of change and the positive or negative outcome of an intervention is an issue that deserves attention in future research.…”

One-year randomized controlled trial with different physical-activity programs to reduce musculoskeletal symptoms in the neck and shoulders among office workers

“…Due to a lack of reliable studies, there is especially conflicting evidence concerning the efficacy of exercise programs on outcomes of complaints from the neck and shoulder regions (9)(10)(11). This lack has led to repeated requests in the scientific literature for more randomized, controlled trails of high methodological quality.…”

Intervention Study on Psychosocial Work Factors and Mental Health and Musculoskeletal Outcomes

“…It is noteworthy that this type of multiple-component intervention makes it more difficult to identify which intervention component(s) is responsible for the effects measured. However, systematic reviews of ergonomic studies evaluating biomechanical and work organization interventions have shown that multiple-component interventions have greater effectiveness (Karsh et al 2001;Silverstein and Clark 2004). The underlying mechanism is that psychosocial work factors take multiple forms in concrete work situations, and these multiple forms can only be tackled by making several appropriate changes in work situations (Denis et al 2008;Karsh et al 2001).…”