Objective: The purpose of this study was to review the worksite intervention program for promoting vegetable intakes, and to clarify the intervention program and behavioral science theories systematically.
Methods: We searched Pub Med in an English database, “Igaku chuo zasshi” and JDream II in a Japanese database in January 2010. Search keywords were “vegetables”, “worksite”, “intervention”. The selection criteria of the studies were 1)the study design was Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) or Controlled Trial (CT), 2)intervention was for nutrition or health education, 3)the study examined increasing or decreasing vegetable intakes, 4)the participants were employees, 5)the text was written in English or Japanese. A total of 134 overseas articles were selected by the keywords searched. After an initial screening of the title and abstract, 82 articles were rejected. After reviewing the full text of the remaining articles, 21 articles were retained. The reliability of the outcomes were checked and the evaluation of vegetable intakes changes were setup.
Results: For the evaluated of changing vegetable intakes, ten articles were selected. Five studies reported increasing vegetable intakes after intervention (increased by 0.18- 0.77SV, or 0.18 cup). These five studies dealt with health information, environment (improvement of cafeterias, peer support, etc.) and IT programs. Behavioral science theories were used in these five articles, and four of them were transtheoretical models.
Conclusion: There were not enough articles for promoting vegetables intakes at worksites. It is necessary to develop the effectiveness intervention program. It might be better to conduct not only health information programs but also environmental and IT programs, and to adapt behavioral science theories of worksite intervention programs for promoting the intake of vegetables.
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