Evaluation of a Brief Intervention for Promoting Mental Health among Employees in Social Enterprises: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial.

Benedicte Deforche,Els Clays,Ilse De Bourdeaudhuij,Nele Huys,Winnie De Roover,Lea Maes,Anne Hublet,Jelle Van Cauwenberg,Jasmine Mommen

doi:10.3390/ijerph15102107

Abstract

Evidence on the effectiveness of workplace mental health promotion for people with disabilities is limited. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a brief mental health promotion intervention in social enterprises. It had a non-blinded cluster randomized controlled trial design with follow-up one and four months after the intervention. In total 196 employees agreed to participate (86 intervention and 110 control). Empowerment was the main outcome; secondary outcomes were resilience, palliative behavior, determinants of four coping strategies of mental health, quality of life, and life satisfaction. A brief participant satisfaction survey was conducted after the intervention. No significant intervention effect on empowerment was found. However, at one month follow-up, significant favorable effects were found on perceived social support for coping strategies for mental health and on palliative behavior. At four months follow-up, favorable intervention effects were found on quality of life, but unfavorable effects were found on unjustified worrying. In addition, the intervention was well received by the employees. This brief intervention might be a promising first step to improve mental health in people with disabilities working in social enterprises. Nevertheless, additional monitoring by professionals and managers working in the organizations might be needed to maintain these effects.

Highlights

Health inequalities are an important issue in public health [1]
According to people with disabilities and researchers, good mental health is a precondition for the performance of other health behaviors
The Attitude, Social influence, and Self-efficacy model (ASE-model) [42] was used as a theoretical framework for the development of the adapted intervention because we found in a previous study using qualitative interviews [7] that these determinants are important in behavior change among people with disabilities

Summary

Introduction

Health inequalities are an important issue in public health [1]. People with intellectual and physical disabilities experience poorer health than the general population [2,3]. People with disabilities are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, and stress [4,5]. These health inequalities are to a large extent independent of the health impact of disabling impairments and are modifiable through health promoting interventions [6]. According to people with disabilities and researchers, good mental health is a precondition for the performance of other health behaviors. Res. Public Health 2018, 15, 2107; doi:10.3390/ijerph15102107 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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