Abstract
ABSTRACT The present study evaluated the effectiveness of a workplace intervention combining activity trackers (behavioural approach) with an online coach (cognitive approach) in order to increase employees’ number of steps and improve their impaired well-being (i.e., emotional strain and negative affect). To analyse the intervention’s effectiveness, the study applied latent growth curve modelling. Moreover, we tested whether work-related and personal resources (i.e., job control and self-efficacy) moderated the intervention’s effectiveness and whether an increase in number of steps was associated with an improvement in impaired well-being. During the intervention, data were collected at six measurement points from 108 mainly low active employees. The results revealed that employees increased their number of steps until the second intervention week; this increase was not moderated by job control or self-efficacy. Moreover, the intervention was effective in decreasing emotional strain and negative affect over the course of the intervention. Further analyses showed that the increase in number of steps was related to the decrease in negative affect, whereas no such association was found for the increase in number of steps and the decrease in emotional strain. In conclusion, the findings showed that our intervention was effective in improving physical activity and impaired well-being among employees.
Highlights
Within the last years the workplace has changed significantly due to the increasing use of machines and technology that replace large parts of physical activity at work
The results revealed that employees in the intervention group (IG) significantly increased their physical activity compared with those in the control group (CG) after the intervention
Regarding the question of what time point the mobile health (mHealth) intervention started to yield an effect, latent change score modelling (LCS) showed that employees required one intervention week before they significantly increased their number of steps
Summary
Within the last years the workplace has changed significantly due to the increasing use of machines and technology that replace large parts of physical activity at work. An office worker nowadays spends up to 71% of his or her time at work doing sedentary activities, so that approximately half of the overall daily sitting time is work-related (Clemes, O'Connell, & Edwardson, 2014; Kazi, Duncan, Clemes, & Haslam, 2014; Miller & Brown, 2004) This development is highly alarming since physical activity, which is defined as any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles resulting in energy expenditure, prevents the incidence of several serious diseases (Caspersen, Powell, & Christenson, 1985; Czosnek et al, 2019; Rhodes, Janssen, Bredin, Warburton, & Bauman, 2017). To further raise awareness and motivation for health behavior change, we implemented an online coach as a cognitive approach offering advice on health behavior change (e.g., how to set health behavior goals)
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