Does tutors' support contribute to a telehealth program that aims to promote the quality of life of office workers? A cluster randomized controlled trial

Roberto Rodrigues Bandeira Tosta Maciel; Luciana Dias Chiavegato; Fernanda Warken Camelier; Daniel Deivson Portella; Marcio Costa De Souza; Rosimeire Simprini Padula

doi:10.1016/j.conctc.2021.100722

Does tutors' support contribute to a telehealth program that aims to promote the quality of life of office workers? A cluster randomized controlled trial

Contemp Clin Trials Commun. 2021 Feb 1:21:100722. doi: 10.1016/j.conctc.2021.100722. eCollection 2021 Mar.

Authors

Roberto Rodrigues Bandeira Tosta Maciel^{1

2}, Luciana Dias Chiavegato^{1

3}, Fernanda Warken Camelier², Daniel Deivson Portella², Marcio Costa De Souza², Rosimeire Simprini Padula¹

Affiliations

¹ Masters and Doctoral Program in Physical Therapy, Universidade Cidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
² Department of Life Sciences, Universidade do Estado da Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.
³ Pulmonology Division, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.

Abstract

The quality of life in the workplace can be achieved by creating a place more humanized and strategies that provide wellness to workers. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of telehealth education program to promote quality of life of office workers.This is a cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT). The participants were office workers computer users (n = 326). All received 9 audiovisual content (grouped into topics: musculoskeletal health, healthy diet, and mental health) that addresses the real needs identified by them in the focus groups. The intervention group (n = 178) was instructed to seek the tutor support about topics addressed by the audiovisual content. The primary outcome measure was quality of life by WHOQOL-BREF. The secondary outcome measure was level of physical activity of the participants. Data analysis was performed by General Linear Mixed Model. After six months of telehealth education program a general improvement in health and environmental domain, was observed in the intervention group. During that period, a within-group analysis showed that there was a significant improvement in the intervention group, with respect to quality of life in general health (p < 0.05) and in the environmental domain (p < 0.01).In the baseline to the eighth month, there were statistically significant changes within-group for the general health (p < 0.05) and for the physical domain (p < 0.01) in both groups (p < 0.01). Telehealth education program promoted an improvement in the participants' quality of life. There was no benefit in favor of the telehealth education program, with tutor support in relation to the conventional program.

Trial registration: The trial was prospectively registered at ClinicalTrial.gov (NCT02980237). The date of registration was August 23, 2016.

Keywords: CI, confidence; E-learning; Health promotion; ICC, intraclass correlation coefficient; IPAQ, International Physical Activity Questionnaire; Internet; Multidisciplinary care program; Occupational health; Qr Code, Quick Response Code; Quality of Life, QL; RCT, Randomized controlled trial; Telehealth; WHOQOL-BREF, The World Health Organization.

Associated data

ClinicalTrials.gov/NCT02980237