The Use of Text Messaging for the Improvement of Occupational Health among Nurses in an Intensive Care Unit: a Clinical Trial Majideh Heravi-Karimooi 1 & Behnam Esbakiyan Bandpey 2 & Nahid Rejeh 1 & Hamid Sharif Nia 3 & Christopher Boyle 4 & Hojjat Torkmandi 5 # Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2017 Abstract The use of mobile phone text messaging has been suggested as a potential method for the modification of health-related behavior. There is limited data on the effectiveness of this method in respect of occupational health. Thus, the present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of text messaging on the improvement of occupational health in terms of quality of work life (QWL) and occupational stress and burnout. This experimental and clinical trial was conducted in the intensive care units (ICU) of how many hospitals in Babol, Iran, in 2015–2016. The study population consisted of all ICU nurses who had the inclusion criteria. After homogenization, the subjects were randomly divided into intervention and control groups (n = 40). The data collection tools used in this study consisted of a demographic characteristics form and the Quality of Work Life Questionnaire, Occupational Stress Inventory (Osipow), and the Geldard Burnout Questionnaire (GBI). The nurses in the intervention group received two text messages on occupational health each week for 3 months. The nurses in the control group received no intervention. QWL and occupational stress and burnout were evaluated in the two groups before the intervention, after the 3 months of intervention, and in the fourth month of intervention. The collected data were first analyzed in terms of the normality of distribution using the Shapiro-Wilk test and then using Mann-Whitney U test and the Friedman test. The participants consisted of 80 nurses in two groups. The two groups were homogeneous in terms of demographic characteristics before the intervention. No significant difference was observed between the groups in terms of QWL and occupational stress and burnout at the same time in the study. Mean QWL in the intervention group increased significantly compared to the control group 1 day and 1 month after the intervention (P < 0.001). Occupational stress and burnout decreased significantly in the intervention group compared to the control group 1 day and 1 month after the intervention (P < 0.001). Mobile phone text messaging, as an inexpensive and readily available method, can improve occupational health in terms of QWL and occupational stress and burnout among ICU nurses. Keywords Mobile phone text messaging . Quality of work life . Occupational burnout . Occupational stress . Intensive care unit nurses Introduction Nurses, as the largest group of workers, have a vital (Mohammadi et al. 2011) and assistive role in hospital care services (Chiu et al. 2007). Although the professional mission of nurses is related to health, they seldom consider their own individual needs, such as that of occupational health (Mohammadi et al. 2011). The nursing profession is a stressful occupation, especially in the intensive care unit (ICU) (Lai et al. 2008), and thus, can cause occupational burnout (Varricchio and Ferrans 2010) and stress (Ozyurt et al. 2006) and a reduc- tion in the quality of work life (QWL) (Mohammadi et al. 2011; Vagharseyyedin et al. 2011) among nurses. * Hojjat Torkmandi hojjat.or@gmail.com 1 Elderly Care Research Center, Shahed University, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Tehran, Iran 2 Yahyanezhad Hospital, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran 3 School of Nursing and Midwifery Amol, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran 4 Ph.D. Graduate School of Education, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK 5 Nursing Care Research Center, Semnan University of Medical Sciences, Semnan, Iran Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science https://doi.org/10.1007/s41347-017-0039-x