Promoting employee health in small and medium-sized enterprises: designing and evaluating a concept for preventing occupational dermatological illnesses.

This chapter describes the development and evaluation of a concept for trainings 7 in skin-care tailored to the specific needs of small and medium-sized enterprises 8 (SMEs) in rural regions. It covers SME in industries in which employees work in 9 wet or damp environments or are exposed to strong chemical or allergenic 10 substances or both; these risk factors frequently lead to work-related skin 11 problems. Florists, outpatient and inpatient care providers, hairdressers, bakers, 12 and metalworkers were recruited to our study. Overall, 72 SMEs participated. 13 The first research step was to explore company owners’ expectations of the 14 training and the requirements particular to their organizations. Trainings on skin- 15 care were developed and tailored to the specific needs of the SMEs and surveyed 16 industries. For evaluation, purposes a randomized controlled trial was conducted 17 in which the effectiveness of the trainings was quantitatively assessed by 18 employees of the participating SMEs completing three waves of written surveys. 19 A significant reduction in skin-related symptoms, a positive effect on skin-care 20 and cleaning, and a significant positive effect on participants’ knowledge in the 21 area of occupational skin protection were found. However, the dermatological 22 training did not have a positive effect on the participants’ satisfaction with their 23 work. The average cost of the intervention per participant was approximately 24 63.50 €; foregone working time not included.