systemic stress prevention via application syslife© for companies

Conditions: Stress, Psychological; Stress, Systemic; Application

Summary: the purpose of this study is to investigate the efficacy of systemic stress prevention via syslife© application in a prospective, interventive, balanced, monocentric, explanatory pilot randomized controlled trial (rct), with participants' subjective stress experience as the primary endpoint. research question: which implementations are necessary, based on the experience from this pilot rct, to ensure the quality of a subsequent confirmatory rct? hypothesis: we expect improvement of participants' subjective stress experience, goal achievement, systemic functioning in private and organisational social systems while using the syslife© application.

background: systemic prevention serves the prophylaxis of disease and/or illness, and/or damage to health. for social subsystems such as professional teams, there however still is a lack of effective preventive or health-promoting interventions. with the prevention act introduced in 2015 (social security code, germany: § 20 para. 1 sgb v), prevention now has to address the social context of people's everyday life as well ("setting/life-world approach"). positive changes in terms of reduced stress perception or acute exposition to stress factors are supposed to be accompanied by improved systemic, psychological and physical well-being. this rct will investigate the efficacy of the systemic stress prevention program syslife© application. methods: this prospective, interventive, balanced, monocentric, explanatory pilot rct compares an experimental group (n = 19) receiving syslife© application with a control group (n = 19) with subsequent intervention, i.e. the syslife@ application 4 months after the experimental group. the primary endpoint is the participants' subjective stress experience. the data collection encompasses 5 measurement points: t1, i.e. baseline for the experimental group; t2: 2-month follow-up; t3: 4-month follow-up for the experimental group and baseline for the control group; t4: 6-month follow-up for the experimental group and 2-month follow-up for the control group; t5: 8-month follow-up for the experimental group and 2-month follow-up for the control group). this allows for the calculation of trends considering the potential efficacy of the syslife© application in the rct design on the one hand (n = 19, 2-study arm approach), and in a cumulative study (n = 38, 1-study arm approach). research question: which implementations are necessary, based on the experience from this pilot rct, to ensure the quality of a subsequent confirmatory rct? hypothesis: we expect improvement of participants' subjective stress experience, goal achievement, systemic functioning in private and organisational social systems while using the syslife© application. questionnaires: stress and coping inventory (sci); trier stress inventory (tics); experience in social systems (exis), goal attainment scaling (gas). further items: demographic data, use of additional health care interventions, user behavior and effect of the syslife© application. discussion: to the best of our knowledge, this will be the first prospective, interventive, balanced, monocentric, explanatory pilot rct comparing syslife© application with a waiting group. for study purposes, it is a challenge to implement syslife© application in organizational contexts such as teams: systemic prevention is an innovative health-promoting approach which is not (yet) covered by the german health insurance companies; the syslife© application is an innovative program in digital health management with high flexibility how to approach it while being standardized in its structure; though companies are increasingly interested in health-promoting interventions for their employees, they are sparing considering the investment of time and financial resources in occupational health care.

Eligibility criteria:
inclusion criteria: * minimum age: 18 years * interest in active use of the syslife© application * knowledge of german at native language level or the ability to use german language independently (at least b-level) * only persons capable of giving consent will be included in the study * written consent to participate after information about the study exclusion criteria: * no written consent

Keywords: stress management application, app prevention systemic therapy