| Summary: | <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The purpose of the study was to evaluate a 6-month intervention to promote office-employees’ walking with pedometers and e-mail messages.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Participants were recruited by 10 occupational health care units (OHC) from 20 worksites with 2,230 employees. Voluntary and insufficiently physically active employees (N = 241) were randomized to a pedometer (STEP, N = 123) and a comparison group (COMP, N = 118). STEP included one group meeting, log-monitored pedometer-use and six e-mail messages from OHC. COMP participated in data collection. Reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, maintenance (RE-AIM) and costs were assessed with questionnaires (0, 2, 6, 12 months), process evaluation and interviews (12 months).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The intervention <it>reached</it> 29% (N = 646) of employees in terms of participation willingness. Logistic regression showed that the proportion of walkers tended to increase more in STEP than in COMP at 2 months in “walking for transportation” (Odds ratio 2.12, 95%CI 0.94 to 4.81) and at 6 months in “walking for leisure” (1.86, 95%CI 0.94 to 3.69). Linear model revealed a modest increase in the mean duration of “walking stairs” at 2 and 6 months (Geometric mean ratio 1.26, 95%CI 0.98 to 1.61; 1.27, 0.98 to 1.64). <it>Adoption</it> and <it>implementation</it> succeeded as intended. At 12 months, some traces of the intervention were sustained in 15 worksites, and a slightly higher number of walkers in STEP in comparison with COMP was observed in “walking stairs” (OR 2.24, 95%CI 0.94 to 5.31) and in “walking for leisure” (2.07, 95%CI 0.99 to 4.34). The direct <it>costs</it> of the intervention were 43 Euros per participant.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The findings indicate only modest impact on some indicators of walking. Future studies should invest in reaching the employees, minimizing attrition rate and using objective walking assessment.</p> <p>Trial registeration</p> <p>ISRCTN79432107</p>
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