Pain at Work Toolkit in Employees With Chronic Pain

Summary

This project will test the feasibility and acceptability of the Pain at Work (PAW) Toolkit which aims to help employees self-manage chronic or persistent pain at work. Ultimately, the investigators want to discover if it improves employees' health, wellbeing, confidence to self-manage their condition, and reduces impacts on their ability to work and be productive at work. Prior to testing the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the PAW Toolkit in a large-scale randomised trial, the investigators are conducting a multicentre pragmatic cluster randomised controlled feasibility trial. This will establish whether the PAW Toolkit, and our research processes, are feasible and acceptable in workplace settings, and will inform the design of a future trial. In this feasibility study, organisations will be randomised at site level to receive the intervention (PAW Toolkit plus occupational therapist (OT) support calls) or control (treatment as usual) for any individual employees who consent to take part. The investigators aim to recruit around 120 participants ("individual employees") from around 8 sites ("clusters"). Data will be collected from employees and organisations at baseline, 3 months and 6 months, using online surveys. At 6 months, up tp 40 people from across different sites and job roles will be interviewed, including employees who have accessed the PAW Toolkit, and other stakeholders (people who have been involved in supporting them at work, such as their line manager).

The data will be used assess whether the intervention and the research processes are acceptable and feasible, and the information collected will be used to plan a large-scale randomised controlled trial.

Conditions

• Chronic Pain
• Pain, Chronic

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Pain at Work Toolkit

Online toolkit providing advice and signposting to help people self-manage chronic or persistent pain at work. Access to optional phone call support from an occupational therapist providing individually tailored advice.

OTHER

Active control

Treatment as usual which will vary depending on the employing organisation but may include, for example, line manager support, occupational health input etc. Access to optional non-specialist phone call support from a study researcher.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Nuffield Trust

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• University of Aberdeen

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Exeter

  collaborator OTHER

• Monash University

  collaborator OTHER

• Versus Arthritis

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Nottingham

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Holly Blake, PhD · University of Nottingham

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-07-01

Primary Completion

2025-07-22

Completion

2025-11-30

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations