Short-term effectiveness of face-to-face periodic occupational health screening versus electronic screening with targeted follow-up: results from a quasi-randomized controlled trial in four Belgian hospitals.

"We wish to express our gratitude to Annouschka Laenen for her assistance with the statistical analyses. The authors report grants from Belgian Professional Association for Occupational Medicine, Idewe, Liantis & Mensura, during the conduct of the study (grant number EZG-D7685); and one of the authors became CEO of the occupational health service IDEWE after the study was completed. The funders had no role in the analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, nor the decision to publish the results."

"We wish to express our gratitude to Annouschka Laenen for her assistance with the statistical analyses. The authors report grants from Belgian Professional Association for Occupational Medicine, Idewe, Liantis & Mensura, during the conduct of the study (grant number EZG-D7685); and one of the authors became CEO of the occupational health service IDEWE after the study was completed. The funders had no role in the analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, nor the decision to publish the results."

"The study protocol is published on ClinicalTrials.gov (Identifier NCT04684316). In a population of 53 Flemish hospitals, we recruited 4 large ones that were willing to participate in this study. In these hospitals, 3150 employees were eligible for periodic health screenings: personnel with safety functions, jobs with heightened vigilance, work that involves physical, biological or chemical agents or tasks that are an ergonomic or mental burden (). Occupational groups that perform especially risky activities (frequent exposure to ionizing radiation, preparation of cytostatics, or exposure to carcinogens, mutagens, or reprotoxic substances) are excluded from the study population, as it is deemed that in these cases the electronic survey does not constitute adequate care that minimizes health risks."