Efficacy of Three Online Well-Being Programs to Improve Work-Related Outcomes

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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Participants will be randomly assigned between three well-being programs, and assessed with questionnaires before and after the 8-week program, as well as 1-month after the end of the program.

Detailed Description
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Participants will be randomly assigned between three different well-being programs, with each program lasting 8-weeks and taking place on a simplified research version of the Happify platform. Well-being programs include the unchanged Happify platform, a version of the Happify platform that is designed to engage with specific activities but does not aim to promote positive emotion or reduce negative emotion (i.e., Placebo condition), and a version of the Happify platform that encourages thinking about well-being through quizzes and polls without providing any instructions for promotion (i.e., Wait-list Control). Participants will be asked to complete questionnaires before and after the 8-week program, as well as a 1-month follow-up questionnaire after the program is complete, at which point study participation will end.

Official Title
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A Randomized Trial Examining the Impact of Three 8-week Online Well-Being Programs on Employment-Related Absenteeism, Engagement, Burnout, Stress, and Resilience

Conditions
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Well-being

Intervention / Treatment
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* Behavioral: Happify


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: No prior experience on the Happify platform (new user registration) Full-time employment Exclusion Criteria: None

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 18 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Other
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Interventional Model Description: Users are randomly assigned between arms after completing baseline assessment and stay in that arm for the duration of the study.
Masking: None (Open Label)


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Active Comparator: Unchanged Happify<br>Participants use Happify as it is currently available to consumers on the main site, including all engagement elements. Users may access a wide variety of 4-week programs and use them in any way they desire for the entire study period. | Behavioral: Happify<br>* An online platform for conveying techniques from positive psychology, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and mindfulness-based stress reduction.<br>|
| Placebo Comparator: Active control<br>Participants complete a Happify program that is designed to engage with specific activities, but that does not aim to promote positive emotion or reduce negative emotion. Participants gain access to 8 weeks worth of content, but may repeat the content as often as they like in the follow-up period. | Behavioral: Happify<br>* An online platform for conveying techniques from positive psychology, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and mindfulness-based stress reduction.<br>|
| Sham Comparator: Distraction condition<br>Participants complete a series of quizzes and polls on Happify designed to engage them in thinking about well-being topics, but without giving any specific instructions for how to promote well-being. Participants gain access to 8 weeks worth of content, but may repeat the content as often as they like in the follow-up period. | Behavioral: Happify<br>* An online platform for conveying techniques from positive psychology, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and mindfulness-based stress reduction.<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Absenteeism (Health and Performance Questionnaire, HPQ [World Health Organization (WHO), 2002]) | An 8-item subset of the HPQ focusing on job absenteeism and work quality. Participants will be asked to indicate how many times in the past week they missed part of/an entire work day due to problems with their physical or mental health, and to indicate how often in the past 7 days the quality of their work suffered (e.g., how often they found themselves not working as carefully as they should). | Change from baseline to 8-week post, 1-month follow-up | 
| Work Engagement (Utrecht Work Engagement Scale [Schaufeli et al., 2002]) | A 2-item subset of the UWES focusing on job resilience and perseverance. Participants will be asked to indicate how frequently they feel mentally resilient at their job and how frequently they persevere. | Change from baseline to 8-week post, 1-month follow-up | 
| Burnout (Maslach Burnout Inventory [Maslach & Jackson, 1981]) | A 5-item subset of the MBI focusing on feeling burned out in work settings. Participants will be asked to indicate the extent to which they agree that they feel burned out (e.g., that they feel burned out from their work or feel frustrated by their job). | Change from baseline to 8-week post, 1-month follow-up | 
| Job-Related Stress (Stress-related Presenteeism Scale [Gilbreath & Frew, 2008]) | A 6-item measure of job stress-related presenteeism. Participants will be asked to indicate how frequently they suffer from stress-related presenteeism is work (e.g., they are unable to concentrate on their job at work, or stress distracts their attention away from job tasks). | Change from baseline to 8-week post, 1-month follow-up | 
| Resilience (composite of Perceived Stress Scale [Cohen et al., 1983], Happify Scale [Carpenter et al., 2016] and Life Orientation Scale, Revised [Scheier & Carver, 1985]). | Composite score made of perceived stress, positive emotionality, and optimism. Perceived stress was measured using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983), a 10-item questionnaire that asks users to rate on a scale of 0 (never) to 4 (very often) how frequently they experience various symptoms of feeling stress. Positive emotionality was measured using the emotion subscale of the Happify Scale (HS-E; Carpenter, Crutchley, Zilca, Schwartz, Smith, Cobb, & Parks, 2016), which is a 4-item scale asking participants to rate the extent to which, over the past week, they have experienced positive and negative emotions that are activated or de-activated. Optimism was measured using the Life Orientation Scale, Revised (LOT-R; Scheier & Carver, 1985), a 6-item scale on which participants rate the extent to which they identify with optimistic or pessimistic beliefs. | Change from baseline to 8-week post, 1-month follow-up | 
| Absenteeism (Healthy Days measure [Center for Disease Control (CDC), 2000]) | A 1-item measure of the extent to which poor physical/mental health prevents one from doing their usual activities, such as self-care, work, or recreation, in the past 30 days [CDC, 2002]. | Change from baseline to 8-week post, 1-month follow-up |