Driessen 2008

Trial name or title	Stay@Work
Methods	Cluster RCT
Participants	Participants are workers, both blue and white collar workers, recruited from the departments of 4 large Dutch companies with at least 3000 workers each. The companies included are a railway transportation company, an airline company, a university including its university medical hospital, and a steel company
Interventions	Intervention group: workers allocated to the intervention departments watch the same movies about the prevention of LBP and NP as the control group. In addition, they receive the Stay@Work PE programme. One of the main characteristics of PE is the formation of a 'working group' in which both workers and management participate as members. The 6 steps of the Stay@Work PE programme are followed during 2 meetings with the working group. Step 1: inventory of the workplace Step 2: analysis of risk factors Step 3: finding of ergonomic measures Step 4: preparation of an implementation plan Step 5: implementation of ergonomic measures Step 6: evaluation and control of the ergonomic measures Control group: workers allocated to the control departments are asked to watch 3 short (45 seconds) web‐based educative movies about the prevention of LBP and NP at the campaign web site of 'Lighten the load, a European Campaign on Musculoskeletal Disorders' developed by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work
Outcomes	Primary outcome: an episode of NP: the presence of NP during a recall period of 3 months followed and preceded by a recall period of 3 months without NP. The transition from a symptom free period to a new episode of NP is modelled as the outcome intensity of pain: the intensity of pain (i.e. pain at the moment of filling out the questionnaire, average pain, and most severe pain experienced in the past 3 months), and the pain duration (total days of pain experienced in the past 3 months) owing to NP is measured using von Korff scales Secondary outcome: sick leave and work productivity actual use of ergonomic equipment
Starting date	Data collection started in November 2007
Contact information	Maurice T Driessen* ‐ m.driessen@vumc.nl Johannes R Anema ‐ h.anema@vumc.nl Karin I Proper ‐ ki.proper@vumc.nl Paulien M Bongers ‐ paulien.bongers@tno.nl Allard J van der Beek ‐ a.vanderbeek@vumc.nl
Notes	‐

LBP: low back pain; NP: neck pain; PE: participatory ergonomics; RCT: randomised controlled trial