Effectiveness of a comprehensive health promotion intervention for managing risk factors associated with musculoskeletal disorders in Iranian housewives: A four-arm randomized controlled trial

Full-time housework includes long hours of musculoskeletal effort that can lead to intense pain, poor workability, stress and reduced quality of life. A comprehensive intervention that included biomechanical and psychosocial educational training was designed and evaluated using a four-arm randomized control trial. A total of 160 housewives recruited from a musculoskeletal disorders clinic were randomly assigned to one of four intervention groups: control, biomechanical, psychosocial and comprehensive (biomechanical and psychosocial). Measures were collected before the seven weekly training sessions, immediately after, and three months and six months later. There were significant sustained improvements compared to baseline in the biomechanical and the psychosocial groups for six risk factors, and all seven risk factors in the comprehensive group providing evidence of independent contributions from biomechanical and psychosocial training approaches. This supported the overarching hypothesis that a comprehensive educational intervention can effectively reduce risk factors associated with musculoskeletal disorders in full-time housewives.