Impact of workplace gymnastics on quality of life of general services assistants in a hospital institution.

Introduction: The adoption of worker care by organizations has been subject of several studies. Hospitals are strategic spaces for health promotion actions to be developed.

Objectives: To analyze the effects of a workplace gymnastics program on the quality of life of hospital workers.

Methods: This was an exploratory longitudinal analytical study. For data collection, the following instruments were employed: sociodemographic questionnaire, assessment of labor gymnastics, World Health Organization Quality of Life instrument-Abbreviated version and Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire, both applied before and after the workplace gymnastics program. The program for general service workers was carried out for 15 weeks, 3 times a week.

Results: After the intervention, a significant improvement was observed in the physical health (p = 0.0001), psychological (p = 0.0001), social relationships (p = 0.0220), environment (p = 0.0001) and general quality of life domains (p = 0.039). However, for environment and general quality of life domains, the increase in the respective average scores was not enough to change the domain classes from fair to good. As for the effect of the intervention on painful symptoms, verified by the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire, a decrease in pain was observed in the neck (p = 0.0455) and knee (p = 0.0455) regions.

Conclusions: Workplace gymnastics provided positive results for workers and, therefore, its practice should be encouraged, as it improves in quality of life and health promotion at work.