Evolutions in Wellness
Creating Office Athletes: Employee Exercise Program at UCLA
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Elisa Terry, Kelly Shedd
An intensive 12 week behavior change program, paid for by the university and offered free to faculty and staff at UCLA. Employees shift from being generally sedentary to physically fit through progressive strength and conditioning 3 days a week for the duration of the course. Research conducted on data collected demonstrated significant results in not only improved levels of fitness, but also benefits on overall mental health of participants, on often under represented area of potential cost savings in worksite wellness programming. Additionally, over the course of 6 years and over 2,500 participants, significant cost savings for the university have been shown.
California Polytechnic State University Mindfulness Project: The Impact of a Mindfulness Application on Wellbeing
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Genie Kim, mbgallag, Beth Gallagher, Carole Schaffer
A literature review of the impact of mindfulness meditation reveals there are multiple positive outcomes associated with daily meditation; findings reference a reduction in the experience of anxiety, depression and stress, for example. Utilizing a mindfulness meditation application that guides users through the meditation process that can be easily accessed by a mobile device could provide additional resources/strategies for mitigating emotional challenges experienced by students, staff and faculty a large, public undergraduate university. Hoping to identify and implement impactful and cost effective wellness strategies, student, staff and faculty volunteers were asked to participate in a study during which participants were asked to utilize a guided meditation application for ten minutes a day for five (5) weeks. Study participants will be asked to complete a Maslach Burnout Inventory before using the meditation application and at the conclusion of the study. Based upon previous research findings, a reduction in the self-report of the experience of burnout will be reported by study participants. Should this hypotheses be confirmed, the widespread use of an easily accessed and affordable application could be deployed across campus to enhance wellbeing.
The Power of Stories to Promote Physical Activity: Evaluating the Quality and Utility of a Video Narrative Tool
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Emily Rose Hunt, Anthony Papathomas
Narrative health interventions utilise personal stories from the target population to motivate others to change behaviour. Narratives are potentially a useful tool for promoting physical activity (PA), yet current findings are equivocal, and more research evidence is needed. The current research aimed to develop and evaluate a video narrative tool as a means of promoting PA in people with arthritis. This study was conducted in two stages; narrative development and, patient and healthcare professional evaluation. Stage 1 involved initial life-story interviews with 20 people with arthritis that informed the narrative content; 2 participants were then invited back to participate in a storytelling workshop and filming sessions to develop videos about their exercise stories. Stage 2 involved evaluating the video narratives using focus groups with arthritis patients and healthcare professionals. Participants responded to questions about narrative quality (e.g. authenticity, relatability, persuasiveness) and practical utility (e.g. uses in healthcare settings). Preliminary findings suggest participants perceived the video narratives to deliver a clear health message within an authentic story. Participants stated the videos portrayed “real people, in real settings, telling a real story” and perceived the videos could be useful to “nudge” patients to adopt PA. Yet, there were tensions regarding the utility of narratives to change PA without integrating traditional cognitive behaviour change approaches. Video narratives could be used as an adjunct to existing exercise programmes to motivate patients. Future research should investigate the effectiveness of these video narratives as an intervention to change PA behaviour.
