Beyond the UAUT: Questionnaire study examining the acceptance of a web-based team development tool aimed at improving work-related wellbeing in nurses

Background: The aim of this study is to examine the factors predicting the acceptance of a digitally-supported leadership and team development tool among nurse managers in three German-speaking countries. Objective: The tool supports leaders in conducting a participatory intervention that is aimed at enhancing wellbeing and motivation of staff by identifying and addressing critical job demands and resources Methods: The tool combines an online teaching and coaching approach with a team survey and an in-person team workshop. Results: As a complex tool consisting of innovative technological as well as procedural aspects, we expect predictors beyond those of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to be relevant in determining its acceptance, specifically, capacities on the level of the self, team and organization. Conclusions: As a complex tool consisting of innovative technological as well as procedural aspects, we expect predictors beyond those of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to be relevant in determining its acceptance, specifically, capacities on the level of the self, team and organization

Acceptance of an Internet-Based Team Development Tool Aimed at Improving Work-Related Well-being in Nurses: Cross-sectional Study

BACKGROUND Workplace health interventions can produce beneficial health- and business-related outcomes. However, such interventions have traditionally focused on lifestyle behaviors of individuals, mostly not considering the role of working conditions. The wecoach intervention is an internet-based tool that combines both a digital and a participatory team development approach aimed at addressing critical job demands and resources as key aspects of health-promoting working conditions. Nursing staff are particularly affected by challenging working conditions and could potentially benefit greatly. Understanding the acceptance of novel workplace health promotion approaches is a critical precursor to their successful implementation and use. OBJECTIVE This study aims to examine the factors influencing the acceptance of a digitally supported team development tool among nurse managers. METHODS A sample of 32 nurse managers from 3 German-speaking countries tested wecoach and completed our online questionnaire. Hypotheses were based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and the organizational health development (OHD) model and were tested using multiple regression analyses. RESULTS Our analyses found that merely capacities on the team level (CapTeam) significantly contributed to the acceptance of wecoach, although only after the other variables were excluded in the stepwise multiple regression analysis. The UTAUT predictors were unable to add significant variance explanation beyond that, and their inclusion masked the contribution of CapTeam. CONCLUSIONS For the acceptance of a digitally supported participatory tool, the fit with the team, its culture, and its motivation are of critical importance, while aspects proposed by traditional acceptance models, such as the UTAUT, may not be applicable

Development and validation of the ‘Lebender emoticon PANAVA’ scale (LE-PANAVA) for digitally measuring positive and negative activation, and valence via emoticons

Positive and negative activation (PA/NA) represent two general activation systems of affect that are of im- portance for studying personality. Hereby, many studies focus on state assessment of PA and NA in everyday situations, using the ‘Experience Sampling Method’ (ESM) performed via mobile devices. ESM studies require short, reliable and validated non-verbal scales for immediate and fast capturing of personality and situation characteristics. In this study we present the non-verbal ‘Lebender Emoticon PANAVA’ scale (LE-PANAVA), consisting of five items capturing PA, NA, and valence (VA). LE-PANAVA is based on the 10-item verbal PANAVA-KS scale developed by Schallberger (2005). The development of LE-PANAVA consisted of a three step process: The graphical development and selection of a set of emoticons (study 1), the validation of the set of emoticons and corresponding adjustments to the scale (study 2), and validation of the final scale (study 3). We conclude from the results that LE-PANAVA captures the two factors PA and NA, but are aware that they are closely interrelated. Additional to LE-PANAVA, an ultra-short version was derived, that is, a forced choice 2×2 matrix of emoticons – the ‘Lebender Emoticon PANA Matrix’ (LE-PANA-M). Both LE-PANAVA and LE-PANA-M are available for future research and practical application

New Work—New Interventions: Digital Occupational Health Interventions and the Co-Creation of a Human-Centered Future of Work

Humans are making use of digital technologies to profoundly transform their working tasks and systems. Psychologists who design interventions to improve health and well-being at the workplace can follow two approaches regarding this transformation: (a) they will make targeted use of the emerging digital technologies themselves and design what we label “digital occupational health interventions” (DOHI), and (b) they will try to influence the ongoing digital transformation in terms of healthy change and work design, thus co-creating the future of work. In this paper, we first aim to provide a narrative and visual synthesis of the techniques and topics behind DOHI, illustrated by examples and followed by a discussion of limitations and opportunities. Secondly, we aim to provide an impulse on how the ongoing transformation of work could be co-created by organizations, their members, and occupational health experts who can contribute their knowledge of human-centered design principles to the future of work

Process and outcome evaluation of an organizational-level stress management intervention in Switzerland

This field study evaluates the process and outcome of an organizational-level stress management intervention (SMI) in eight companies, taking into account the lessons learned from previous evaluation research. It utilizes the RE-AIM evaluation framework to capture the Reach and Adoption of the intervention in the companies, the appraisal of the Implementation process and the project's Effectiveness and Maintenance with a range of qualitative and quantitative methods. It applies an adapted research design in the context of a field study involving entire organizations, retrospectively assigning study participants to comparison groups. The results of a longitudinal analysis (n = 1400) showed that the SMI had a positive impact on the participants' job demands and resources, when controlled for baseline levels. Qualitative data analysis revealed that the companies had built capacities for ongoing health promotion and showed what issues must be borne in mind when implementing such projects. The study also showed that participation in such interventions alone does not suffice to achieve the desired impact, but that the individual participants' appraisal of the intervention and the collective involvement of the teams must be further researched to fully understand how change occur

Individual and group-level job resources and their relationships with individual work engagement

OBJECTIVES: This study adds a multilevel perspective to the well-researched individual-level relationship between job resources and work engagement. In addition, we explored whether individual job resources cluster within work groups because of a shared psychosocial environment and investigated whether a resource-rich psychosocial work group environment is beneficial for employee engagement over and above the beneficial effect of individual job resources and independent of their variability within groups. METHODS: Data of 1,219 employees nested in 103 work groups were obtained from a baseline employee survey of a large stress management intervention project implemented in six medium and large-sized organizations in diverse sectors. A variety of important job resources were assessed and grouped to an overall job resource factor with three subfactors (manager behavior, peer behavior, and task-related resources). Data were analyzed using multilevel random coefficient modeling. RESULTS: The results indicated that job resources cluster within work groups and can be aggregated to a group-level job resources construct. However, a resource-rich environment, indicated by high group-level job resources, did not additionally benefit employee work engagement but on the contrary, was negatively related to it. CONCLUSIONS: On the basis of this unexpected result, replication studies are encouraged and suggestions for future studies on possible underlying within-group processes are discussed. The study supports the presumed value of integrating work group as a relevant psychosocial environment into the motivational process and indicates a need to further investigate emergent processes involved in aggregation procedures across levels

Common genetic variation and susceptibility to partial epilepsies: a genome-wide association study

Partial epilepsies have a substantial heritability. However, the actual genetic causes are largely unknown. In contrast to many other common diseases for which genetic association-studies have successfully revealed common variants associated with disease risk, the role of common variation in partial epilepsies has not yet been explored in a well-powered study. We undertook a genome-wide association-study to identify common variants which influence risk for epilepsy shared amongst partial epilepsy syndromes, in 3445 patients and 6935 controls of European ancestry. We did not identify any genome-wide significant association. A few single nucleotide polymorphisms may warrant further investigation. We exclude common genetic variants with effect sizes above a modest 1.3 odds ratio for a single variant as contributors to genetic susceptibility shared across the partial epilepsies. We show that, at best, common genetic variation can only have a modest role in predisposition to the partial epilepsies when considered across syndromes in Europeans. The genetic architecture of the partial epilepsies is likely to be very complex, reflecting genotypic and phenotypic heterogeneity. Larger meta-analyses are required to identify variants of smaller effect sizes (odds ratio <1.3) or syndrome-specific variants. Further, our results suggest research efforts should also be directed towards identifying the multiple rare variants likely to account for at least part of the heritability of the partial epilepsies. Data emerging from genome-wide association-studies will be valuable during the next serious challenge of interpreting all the genetic variation emerging from whole-genome sequencing studie