Testing a daily smartphone-delivered intervention in individuals with work stress

Psychosocial stress is a widespread problem and a substantial co-determinant of organic disease, including cardiovascular disease (CVD). One of the most important stressors are work stressors, that increase CVD risk up to 3.6 times (Bosma, Peter, & Siegrist, 1998; Matthews & Gump, 2002) in a dose response fashion (Chandola et al., 2008), with follow-up times between 4-12 years. There is a general agreement that stressors exert their unhealthy effects in the long run via prolonged physiological stress responses (e.g., lower heart rate variability, prolonged blood pressure, excessive cortisol excretion). In recent years, a new hypothesis has been put forward stating that a large part of these prolonged physiological stress responses is due to implicit or unconscious stress (Brosschot, Verkuil, & Thayer, 2010). The best way to show that unconscious stress causes prolonged activity in real life, which is the main premise of this new theory, is to manipulate unconscious stress, in this case to decrease it, since the reverse would be unethical. To our knowledge however, no intervention exists that reduces unconscious stress. In this project we therefore want to study the effect of a smartphone-programmed mindfulness-based therapy on conscious (e.g., effort-reward imbalance) and unconscious (work) stress (i.e., Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test and Implicit Association Test) in daily life. More specifically, we expect that administering an evidence-based intervention (mindfulness) reduces conscious as well as unconscious stress.

• Participants in the experimental condition (i.e., mindfulness exercises) will experience a larger decrease on the implicit negative affect scale of the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test compared to the waitlist condition

• Participants in the experimental condition will experience a larger decrease on implicit stress, as measured by the Implicit Association Test, compared to the waitlist condition.

At the start of the intervention, after two weeks and after 4 weeks the psychological questionnaires and tasks will be completed.

Experimental condition: problem-solving techniques, worry postponement, mindfulness exercises

•Dose: daily, 5 times a day (between 9 AM – 11 PM)

•Duration: 4 weeks (29 days)

•Mode of administration: via an application on a smartphone



Waitlist condition: no treatment