Evaluation of three interventions to promote workplace health and safety: evidence for the utility of implementation intentions
Section snippets
The theory of planned behavior
The theory of planned behavior (TPB; Atzen (1985), Ajzen (1991a), Ajzen (1991b)) has been used extensively to understand and predict health behaviors including exercise (e.g., Norman & Smith, 1995; Sheeran & Orbell, 2000a), diet (e.g., Povey, Conner, Sparks, James, & Shepherd, 2000), smoking (e.g., Norman, Bell, & Conner, 1999), alcohol use (e.g., Rise & Wilhelmson, 1998), safer sex (e.g., Sheeran, Abraham, & Orbell, 1999; Sutton, McVey, & Glanz, 1999) and health screening (Sheeran, Conner, &
Participants and procedure
Potential participants were employees at a United Kingdom university who were eligible to attend one of six training courses that would take place over a 3-month period (n=3000 approx.). One week before the start of the first course, a random sample (n=1260) was sent a postal questionnaire through the internal mail system. This resulted in n=316 returns. Forty-five participants were eliminated from the sample either because they reported having attended a training course during the previous
Results
Data analysis proceeded in six stages. First, the discriminant validity of the additional variables (organizational support, moral obligation, and competing intentions) was assessed and scales were constructed. Second, the representativeness of the sample was checked. Third, the success of randomization of participants was tested. Fourth, the effect of the motivational intervention on attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and intentions was assessed. The fifth set of
Discussion
This is the first study that evaluated psychological interventions to increase attendance at workplace health and safety training courses. Three interventions were tested; a motivational intervention based on the theory of planned behavior, a volitional intervention based on Gollwitze (1993), Gollwitze (1999) concept of implementation intentions, and a combined motivational plus volitional intervention. The key finding from the study was that participants who formed implementation intentions
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Kamaljit Birdi and Paul Norman for helpful comments on a previous draft of the manuscript.
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