Research Article Process Evaluation of Workplace Interventions with Physical Exercise to Reduce Musculoskeletal Disorders

Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Process evaluation is important to explain success or failure of workplace interventions. This study performs a summative process evaluation of workplace interventions with physical exercise. As part of a randomized controlled trial 132 office workers with neck and shoulder pain were to participate in 10 weeks of elastic resistance training five times a week at the workplace; the 2min group performed a single set of lateral raise to failure, and the 12min group performed 5-6 sets with 8–12 repetitions. Participants received a single instructional session together with a training diary and manual at baseline (100 % dose delivered and 100 % dose received), and 59 and 57 participants, respectively, replied to the process evaluation questionnaire at 10-week follow-up. Results showed that in the 2 and 12min groups, respectively, 82 % and 81 % of the participants completed more than 30 training sessions. However, two-thirds of the participants would have preferred more than a single exercise to vary between. In the 12 versus 2min group more participants experienced the training sessions as too long (30 % versus 5%). Most participants (67–92%) found the training diary and manual helpful, adequacy in a single instructional session, and satisfaction with the type of training. Among those with low adherence, lack of time (51%) and difficulties in starting exercising after illness (26%) were common barriers for regular training. Among those with low adherence, 52 % felt that five training sessions per week were too much, and 29 % would rather have traine