Personal and PsychoPhysiological WELLness and recovery management based on stress, sleep, and exercise (P4Well): Preliminary findings

Common psychological reactions to prolonged work-related stress are depression, anxiety and emotional exhaustion. However, the percentage of those receiving psychological help or psychotherapy for their problems is strikingly low. There is a striking need to improve people's mental wellbeing and to help them cope with various stress-related problems. The scarcity of resources in health care emphasizes the need for prevention based on self-management - before psycho-physiological problems become a chronic condition. Personal and PsychoPhysiological WELLness and recovery management based on stress, sleep, and exercise (P4Well) is a novel service concept for wellbeing management of working age population. The focus of P4Well concept is on managing stress, overload, and recovery from load caused by daily life, and general wellbeing. The first evaluation study took place in spring 2009. Subjects with mild depression, exhaustion, sleeping and/or stress symptoms were recruited through a newspaper advertisement. Subjects were 26 men at 29-59 years of age. They were divided into a treatment group and a waiting list control group. The treatment group had one 4-hour workshop including a 1,5-hour psychological mini-intervention and two more 2-hour workshops. The self-monitoring technological tools were used during the whole study period. The psychological data was collected using the following questionnaires: BDI, SCL-90, three visual analogue scales (VAS) measuring mood, general life satisfaction and self-confidence, AAQ-2 measuring psychological flexibility, Effort-reward imbalance questionnaire (ERI), Bergen Burnout Inventory (BBI-15), Need for Recovery -scale and Psychological recovery strategy scale. This paper will discuss the findings and experiences of using psychological mini-intervention workshops in combination with high technology tools.