Worksite exercise intervention for hospital health care providers: Outcomes and resource utilization of a pilot study

Objectives: Workplace exercise has been demonstrated to improve health outcomes and productivity. Hospital staffs may have a large potential to benefit from workplace exercise; however, implementation of workplace exercise faces the challenges of the workflow in hospitals. This study aimed to explore the economic and productivity consequences of a 12-week exercise intervention for hospital health care providers in a Danish hospital department. Methods: The outcome measures included the costs of providing the intervention, sick leave, self-reported quality of life (EQ-5D-5 L), work engagement (Utrecht Work Engagement Scale), and employees' workplace social capital. Ordinary Least Squares and Generalized Linear Models were employed to assess whether the extent of participation in the intervention was associated with the outcome measures. Results: A total of 80 participants completed an average of 9 sessions during the 12-week study period, at an estimated mean cost of euro77 per person. Increasing number of exercise sessions was associated with improvements on the pain domain of the EQ-5D-5 L (mean (SD)-0.2570 (0.723), p = 0.0049), and with improved work engagement (by 4.6%) over the intervention period. We found no significant associations between exercise session participation and the other outcome measures. Conclusions: The pilot study demonstrates relatively high acceptance of a worksite exercise program at a hospital, at a relatively low cost, with several important directions in outcomes. Further work should explore whether these results can be replicated in a larger, randomized trial.