personalized stress management with application of portable devices in occupational populations

Conditions: Stress, Psychological; Autonomic Nervous System Diseases; Emotional Stress

Summary: hospital setting is a stressful environment to the hospital staff due to work shifts, high level of responsibility, stressful challenging situations, as well as work and emotional pressures. the rate of burnout among hospital staff is high, as well as the risk of depression and suicide. the association between chronic work stress in hospital and the development of metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular complications and cancer is well established. however, it is actually not easy for the hospital staff to establish a healthier life habit and stress management skills by themselves due to the busy work schedule and the lack of persistence of building up new habits. we hypothesized that conduction of the personalized stress management coaching with the assistance of portable device could be beneficial for the hospital staff to adopt a few healthy behaviors for daily practice, which could reduce stress and the related consequences. the current study will be conducted in two separate hospitals from wuhan (china) with different intervention strategies and conduction teams. each institution will recruit 200 participants and complete the full set of biographic information collections at recruitment. clinical score evaluations, biosample collections as well as 24 h holter monitoring will be both collected at the recruitment and after 3-month intervention phase. tongji hospital will receive the active stress-management intervention; the health educator will group the participants together and provide on a weekly basis: stress knowledge and stress-related hazards online, stress management necessities and skills. meanwhile, weekly data of exercises, cardiac health and sleep condition generated from huawei portable devices will be summarized and sent to the participants together with personalized suggestions and encouragement by trained nurses. participants from tongji hospital will be involved in a social network to share their experience and gain insight from the discussions. finally, they will also complete an electronic diary that covers elements of daily life and stress management activity. the control institution will be wuhan no1 hospital, the participants will receive minimum information regarding stress and stress management; they will not receive personalized intervention and will not be involved in group chat. they will be asked to fill in a simplified questionnaire biweekly. the outcome parameters will be the stress relief evaluated by clinical forms and questionnaires, heart rate variability (hrv) parameters, and the establishments of healthier life habits. the current study design would propose a novel strategic stress management plan for the hospital administrates in order to improve the hospital staff health.


Eligibility criteria:
inclusion criteria: * working as night-shift staff in tongji hospital * need to keep this position for at least 6 months (no plan to leave) * selection will ensure a good balance of age and gender * willing to participate in the study and sign the consent form exclusion criteria: * planning to leave the hospital or the units for any reason * not a good medical condition or context for reliable follow-up * having a serious medical condition (for instance cancer, stroke) * living in a special life context that is source of stress

Keywords: stress at work stress management autonomic system physical exercise relaxation knowledge translation