| Methods |
Controlled clinical trial, Canada |
| Participants |
"The study population was composed of all care‐providing personnel in the experimental (n = 674) and control hospitals (n = 894), both of which offer general and specialised short‐term care. The population included all healthcare professionals in direct contact with patients (nurses and beneficiary attendants)." (p. 480). Of these, 467 participants remained at follow‐up (247 in the intervention group and 220 in the control group). |
| Interventions |
"The intervention was defined as changes undertaken by the hospital to reduce adverse psychosocial factors in the workplace. Solutions proposed by the intervention team and adopted by the nursing department as well as any other objective change introduced with the explicit goal (or actual consequence) of improving one of the four targeted psychosocial factors were considered part of the intervention." (p. 480) |
| Outcomes |
Client burnout, work burnout, personal burnout and psychological distress. In addition, the authors measured several intermediary outcomes such as psychological demands and decision latitude. |
| Notes |
|
| Risk of bias |
| Bias |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) |
High risk |
"This research used a before‐and‐after quasi‐experimental design with a control group." (p. 480) |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) |
High risk |
There was no allocation concealment. |
| Blinding (performance bias and detection bias)
All outcomes |
High risk |
Not possible |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias)
All outcomes |
Unclear risk |
Not reported |
| Selective reporting (reporting bias) |
Low risk |
All the measured outcomes were reported. |
| Other bias |
Unclear risk |
"It is difficult to identify which aspect of the intervention was responsible for the outcomes observed. In fact, even if the qualitative part of the study allowed to gather detailed information on what changes were made, still the design of the study was not experimental and as in most intervention research, changes in the workplace were beyond the researchers’ control." (pp. 483 ‐ 4) |
