title: The COMmunity of Practice And Safety Support (COMPASS) Total Worker Health™ study among home care workers: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Home care workers are a high-risk group for injury and illness. Their unique work structure presents challenges to delivering a program to enhance their health and safety. No randomized controlled trials have assessed the impact of a Total Worker Health™ program designed for their needs.
  
  
  METHODS
  The COMPASS (COMmunity of Practice And Safety Support) study is a cluster randomized trial being implemented among Oregon's unionized home care workers. Partnering with the Oregon Home Care Commission allowed recruiting 10 pairs of home care worker groups with 8 participants per group (n = 160) for balanced randomization of groups to intervention and control conditions. Physiologic and survey evaluation of all participants will be at enrollment, 6 months and 12 months. Primary outcomes are to increase health promoting (for example, healthy nutrition and regular physical activity) and health protecting (that is, safety) behaviors. In addition to assessing outcomes adjusted for the hierarchical design, mediation analyses will be used to deconstruct and confirm the program's theoretical underpinnings and intervention processes. Intervention groups will participate in a series of monthly 2-hour meetings designed as ritualized, scripted peer-led sessions to increase knowledge, practice skills and build support for healthy actions. Self-monitoring and individual and team level goals are included to augment change. Because generalizability, reach and achieving dissemination are priorities, following initial wave findings, a second wave of COMPASS groups will be recruited and enrolled with tailoring of the program to align with existing Home Care Commission educational offerings. Outcomes, process and mediation of those tailored groups will be compared with the original wave's findings.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The COMPASS trial will assess a novel program to enhance the safety and health of a vulnerable, rapidly expanding group of isolated caregivers, whose critical work allows independent living of frail seniors and the disabled.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02113371, first registered 11 March 2014.
authors.forename: Ryan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Olson
authors.affiliation: Division of Health Promotion & Sports Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University, 3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road, L606, Portland, OR 97239-3098, USA. elliotd@ohsu.edu.
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Elliot
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hess
authors.forename: Sharon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.forename: Kristy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Luther
authors.forename: Brad
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wipfli
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.forename: Annie Mancini
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Buckmaster
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D015438:Health Behavior; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion; D006304:Health Status; D006699:Home Care Services; D018576:Home Health Aides / Q000193:education* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D007318:Inservice Training / Q000379:methods*; D016272:Occupational Health / Q000193:education*; D060051:Occupational Injuries / Q000517:prevention & control*; D009922:Oregon; D010379:Peer Group; D011788:Quality of Life; D012107:Research Design; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D013997:Time Factors; D000078329:Workforce