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Systematic Review
The authors state:
"This systematic review aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of workplace interventions to reduce sitting at work compared to no intervention or alternative interventions."
The authors state:
"We found 34 studies — including two cross‐over RCTs, 17 RCTs, seven cluster‐RCTs, and eight controlled before‐and‐after studies — with a total of 3,397 participants, all from high‐income countries. The studies evaluated physical workplace changes (16 studies), workplace policy changes (four studies), information and counselling (11 studies), and multi‐component interventions (four studies). One study included both physical workplace changes and information and counselling components.
Physical workplace changes: Interventions using sit‐stand desks, either alone or in combination with information and counselling, reduced sitting time at work on average by 100 minutes per workday at short‐term follow‐up (up to three months) compared to sit‐desks (95% confidence interval (CI) −116 to −84, 10 studies, low‐quality evidence).
Workplace policy changes: We found no significant effects for implementing walking strategies on workplace sitting time at short‐term (MD −15 minutes per day, 95% CI −50 to 19, low‐quality evidence, one study) and medium‐term (MD −17 minutes/day, 95% CI −61 to 28, one study) follow‐up. Short breaks (one to two minutes every half hour) reduced time spent sitting at work on average by 40 minutes per day (95% CI −66 to −15, one study, low‐quality evidence) compared to long breaks (two 15‐minute breaks per workday) at short‐term follow‐up.
Information and counselling: Providing information, feedback, counselling, or all of these resulted in no significant change in time spent sitting at work at short‐term follow‐up (MD −19 minutes per day, 95% CI −57 to 19, two studies, low‐quality evidence). However, the reduction was significant at medium‐term follow‐up (MD −28 minutes per day, 95% CI −51 to −5, two studies, low‐quality evidence).
Multi-component interventions: Combining multiple interventions had significant but heterogeneous effects on sitting time at work (573 participants, three studies, very low‐quality evidence) and on time spent in prolonged sitting bouts (two studies, very low‐quality evidence) at short‐term follow‐up."
The authors state:
"At present there is low‐quality evidence that the use of sit‐stand desks reduce workplace sitting at short‐term and medium‐term follow‐ups. However, there is no evidence on their effects on sitting over longer follow‐up periods.
Effects of other types of interventions, including workplace policy changes, provision of information and counselling, and multi‐component interventions, are mostly inconsistent. The quality of evidence is low to very low for most interventions, mainly because of limitations in study protocols and small sample sizes.
There is a need for larger cluster‐RCTs with longer‐term follow‐ups to determine the effectiveness of different types of interventions to reduce sitting time at work."