Browsing by Subject "happiness"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Forty-five good things: a prospective pilot study of the Three Good Things well-being intervention in the USA for healthcare worker emotional exhaustion, depression, work-life balance and happiness.
    (BMJ open, 2019-03-20) Sexton, J Bryan; Adair, Kathryn C
    OBJECTIVES:High rates of healthcare worker (HCW) burn-out have led many to label it an 'epidemic' urgently requiring interventions. This prospective pilot study examined the efficacy, feasibility and evaluation of the 'Three Good Things' (3GT) intervention for HCWs, and added burn-out and work-life balance to the set of well-being metrics. METHODS:228 HCWs participated in a prospective, repeated measures study of a web-based 15-day long 3GT intervention. Assessments were collected at baseline and 1, 6 and 12-month post-intervention. The primary measure of efficacy was a derivative of the emotional exhaustion subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The secondary measures were validated instruments assessing depression symptoms, subjective happiness, and work-life balance. Paired samples t-tests and Cohen's d effect sizes for correlated samples were used to examine the efficacy of the intervention. RESULTS:3GT participants exhibited significant improvements from baseline in emotional exhaustion, depression symptoms and happiness at 1 month, 6 months and 12 months, and in work-life balance at 1 month and 6 months (effect sizes 0.16-0.52). Exploratory subgroup analyses of participants meeting 'concerning' criteria at baseline revealed even larger effects at all assessment points (0.55-1.57). Attrition rates were similar to prior 3GT interventions. CONCLUSION:3GT appears a promising low-cost and brief intervention for improving HCW well-being. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION:This study is approved by the Institutional Review Board of Duke University Health System (Pro00063703). All participants are required to give their informed consent prior to any study procedure.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Physical and mental decline and yet rather happy? A study of Danes aged 45 and older.
    (Aging Ment Health, 2015) Vestergaard, Sonja; Thinggaard, Mikael; Jeune, Bernard; Vaupel, James W; McGue, Matt; Christensen, Kaare
    OBJECTIVES: Little is known about whether the feeling of happiness follows the age-related decline in physical and mental functioning. The objective of this study was to analyze differences with age in physical and mental functions and in the feeling of happiness among Danes aged 45 years and older. METHOD: Three Danish population-based surveys including 11,307 participants aged 45+ years, of whom 2411 were in the age group of 90+, were conducted in the period 1995-2001. The participation rate in the three surveys was between 63% and 82% and the same design and the same instrument were used. Self-reported mobility, a cognitive composite score, and a depression symptomatology score including a question about happiness were assessed. T-score metric was used to compare across domains and age groups. RESULTS: Overall, successively older age groups performed worse than the youngest age group (45-49 years), and the estimated linear decline was greater after age 70 than before age 70. For example, when comparing the oldest age group (90+ years) with the youngest, the T-score differences were found to be the largest for the mobility score (men: 40.2, women: 41.4), followed by the cognitive function (men: 22.0, women: 24.9), and the total depression symptomatology score (men: 15.5, women: 17.4). Conversely, the T-score difference in happiness was small (men: 5.6, women: 6.0). CONCLUSION: Despite markedly poorer physical and mental functions with increasing age, in this Danish sample age did not seem to affect happiness to a similarly notable extent, although, in this study, cohort and age effects cannot be disentangled.