Project: The effect of a workplace stress prevention intervention on the productivity of workers and the cost effectiveness of the intervention

Health problems due to long term stress, today account for a significant share of the health problems among the Swedish and European population and it has been increasing the last decade. Psychosocial factors at the workplace have shown to be responsible for a large part of this increase. Systematic reviews show that there is little known about the interventions used, both by the OHS and in general, to prevent stress related health problems at the workplace by targeting psychosocial factors. The Stress Prevention at Work (SPA) project at Karolinska Institutet was established due to this. The aim of the project is to evaluate the effectiveness of a productivity-enhancing intervention (ProMes) with a participatory approach on reducing stress related health problems and on increasing productivity at the workplace. ProMES is used and recommended by the ILO (International Labor Organization) and has previously shown to improve productivity in different types of organizations and continents. However, little is known about its effect on reducing production loss due to stress related health problems at the workplace. Moreover, not much is known regarding the cost-effectiveness of the intervention.

A randomized controlled trial is performed within the health care sector, partly to investigate the effect on reducing production loss due to health problems and work environment problems at the workplace. In addition to evaluating the effectiveness of the intervention a cost-effectiveness evaluation will also be performed.