Evaluating the Effectiveness of Multifaceted Implementation Strategies for Implementing a Guideline for the Prevention of Common Mental Disorders at the Workplace in Schools

Summary

Given today's high prevalence of common mental disorders and related sick leave among teachers an urgent need exists for a more sustainable working life for this professional group. One way of doing this is by improving schools' social and organizational risk management. Recent reports have shown that many schools in Sweden however lack a structured approach to the management of social and organizational risks. In 2015, we launched the first Swedish occupational health guideline to support a structured prevention of social and organizational risks at the workplace with the aim of preventing common mental disorders. The long-term goal of this study is to support the implementation of this guideline within schools in order to improve social and organizational risk management and in doing so reduce risk factors for mental ill-health and related sick days. The objective of the study is to fill the current research-to-practice gap by conducting a cluster-randomized controlled trial that compares the effectiveness of two implementation strategies for implementing the guideline in schools. The strategies that will be compared are training (ARM 1) versus training in combination with implementation teams and workshops (ARM 2). Our hypothesis for the study is that schools that receive support in implementing the guideline through combined strategies are more responsive to working in a structured and systematic manner with the management of social and organizational risks than schools that only receive training. The trial will be conducted in 20 primary schools in two municipalities in Sweden. All schools have agreed to participate. The primary outcomes are adherence to the guideline (implementation effectiveness) and self-reported exhaustion among schools personnel (intervention effectiveness); the secondary outcomes are risk factors for mental ill-health and absenteeism. Data will be collected at baseline, 6, 12 and 24 months by mixed methods (i.e. survey, focus-group interviews, observation, and register-data).

Conditions

• Common Mental Disorders

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Multifaceted implementation strategies

The school-management will participate in a one-day training aimed at providing knowledge and skills related the recommendations of the guideline for the prevention of common mental disorders at the workplace.In addition every intervention school will form an implementation team that is responsible for the implementation of the guideline. The implementation team will comprise of approximately 3-5 individuals with experience in the field of social and organizational work environment, for example school-management and occupational health and safety representative. The implementation teams will participate in 4-5 workshops aimed at supporting the implementation process. Intervention schools within the same municipality will participate in the same workshop in order to promote peer-support.

BEHAVIORAL

Single implementation strategy

The school-management will participate in a one-day training aimed at providing knowledge and skills related to the recommendations of the guideline for the prevention of common mental disorders at the workplace

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Karolinska Institutet

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Lydia Kwak, PhD · Karolinska Institutet

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2017-09-12

Primary Completion

2019-10-30

Completion

2019-12-31

Countries

• Sweden

Study Locations