A pilot randomized clinical trial of a teamwork intervention for heart failure care dyads.

BACKGROUND: Dyadic heart failure (HF) management can improve outcomes for patients and caregivers and can be enhanced through eHealth interventions. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of an eHealth dyadic teamwork intervention, compared to an attention control condition. METHODS: We recruited 29 HF patient-caregiver dyads from inpatient units and randomized dyads to an intervention or a control group. We calculated enrollment and retention rates, described acceptability using interview and questionnaire data, and computed intervention effect sizes. RESULTS: 37% of eligible dyads agreed to participate and 93% of randomized participants completed follow-up questionnaires. Participants found both study conditions to be acceptable. Between-group effect sizes suggested that the intervention led to improvements in relationship quality, self-efficacy, and quality of life for patients and caregivers. CONCLUSIONS: Dyadic recruitment from acute care settings is challenging. Findings provide initial evidence that our intervention can contribute to better health outcomes for HF dyads.

The costs of mindfulness at work: The moderating role of mindfulness in surface acting, self-control depletion, and performance outcomes.

By and large, research in organizational behavior and psychology has emphasized that mindfulness should have positive implications for employee well-being and performance, largely through benefits to self-control. Although some have noted that mindfulness could also have a "dark side," researchers have yet to examine the potential costs of being mindful at work. Building on prior studies that have found that mindfulness leads to lower levels of surface acting, we investigate the possibility that when mindful employees engage in surface acting, it may contribute to greater self-control depletion, which in turn, results in undesirable performance outcomes. Using six field studies, we collected data at multiple points in time from both employees and their supervisors to test our theoretical model. In two Study 1 samples, we found that mindfulness moderated the relationship between surface acting and self-control depletion, such that this relationship was stronger for more mindful individuals. In four Study 2 samples, we replicated our Study 1 results and found that the mediated relationship between surface acting and five dimensions of employee performance via self-control depletion is moderated by mindfulness at the first stage, such that this mediated relationship is stronger for more mindful individuals. We discuss the implications of this work for future investigations of mindfulness, self-control, emotional labor, and performance outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Operationalizing Heedful Interrelating: How Attending, Responding, and Feeling Comprise Coordinating and Predict Performance in Self-Managing Teams.

Team coordination implies a system of individual behavioral contributions occurring within a network of interpersonal relationships to achieve a collective goal. Current research on coordination has emphasized its relational aspects, but has not adequately accounted for how team members also simultaneously manage individual behavioral contributions and represent the whole system of the team's work. In the current study, we develop theory and test how individuals manage all three aspects of coordinating through the three facets described in the theory of heedful interrelating. We operationalize the facet of contributing as distributing attention between self and others, subordinating as responsively communicating, and representing as feeling the system of the team's work as a cohesive whole. We then test the relationships among these facets and their influence on team performance in an experiment with 50 ad hoc triads of undergraduate student self-managing teams tasked with collectively composing a song in the lab. In analyzing thin-slices of video data of these teams' coordination, we found that teams with members displaying greater dispersion of attentional distribution and more responsive communicating experienced a stronger feeling of the team as a whole. Responsive communication also predicted team performance. Accounting for how the three aspects of coordinating are managed by individual team members provides a more critical understanding of heedful interrelating, and insight into emergent coordination processes.

A cross-industry assessment of personal exposures to methyl methacrylate.

This study investigated personal exposures to methyl methacrylate (MMA) monomer during monomer production and use within the chemical manufacturing industry. The aim was to include multiple companies and sites to provide information regarding differences and similarities among exposure subgroups within the industry during the time period of 1998-2000. To this end, personal exposure data for MMA monomer from three chemical corporations was combined into a single data set. The data was stratified by sample type (full shift or short term), job classification (monomer production, monomer use, maintenance, distribution, and laboratory operations), company, and facility. Only classifications with three samples or more were included in the final data set, yielding 376 samples for analysis (334 full-shift and 42 short-term samples). Results compare well with previously published data on MMA monomer exposures. Although there was significant variability in several exposure subgroups (particularly among companies and facilities), MMA monomer use in the manufacture of other products resulted in the highest exposure distributions, with lower exposures associated with monomer production, maintenance, and distribution operations. The usefulness of these findings is related to the provision of information for discussion of current needs in the industry regarding data sampling, exposure assessment, and standards development.

Test-retest repeatability of the Strain Index.

Fifteen raters individually, and in five teams of three, evaluated the test-retest repeatability of published data collection and rating methods of the Strain Index by analyzing 61 job video files twice over a 5-month period. Raters estimated average and peak hand forces, measured Duration of Exertion, cycle time, and exertions per job cycle, calculated percent Duration of Exertion and Efforts per Minute, and assigned ratings for five of the six Strain Index task variables. Twelve additional jobs were analyzed to determine Strain Index Score and hazard classification. Intraclass correlation (ICC) coefficients for task variable ratings and accompanying data ranged from 0.66 to 0.95 for both individuals and teams. The Strain Index Score ICC(2,1) for individuals and teams were 0.56 and 0.82, respectively. Intra-rater reliability for the hazard classification was 0.81 for individuals and 0.88 for teams. The results indicate that the Strain Index has good test-retest reliability.

Inter-rater reliability of the strain index.

The Strain Index is one of several tools available to evaluate exposure to musculoskeletal stressors in the workplace in order to predict whether workers are at an increased risk of developing distal upper extremity disorders. The purpose of this study was to determine the inter-rater reliability of the Strain Index. Fifteen raters initially estimated or measured data for five Strain Index task variables: (1) intensity of exertion, (2) duration of exertion, (3) efforts per minute, (4) hand/wrist posture, and (5) speed of work, using a computer to view 61 video segments of single task jobs. Video segments were organized to provide a balanced number for each of the five variables under study, where each segment was used to provide data for a single variable. Raters then assigned rating values to each task according to published procedures. For an additional 12 segments, raters performed complete Strain Index analyses, including calculation of Strain Index scores, which were used to determine hazard classifications. Raters assessed the tasks both as individuals and as members of five three-person teams. Inter-rater reliabilities of the procedures leading to and including the Strain Index scores were assessed using an intraclass correlation coefficient, (ICC(2, 1)). Inter-rater reliability for the dichotomous hazard classification was assessed using Kuder-Richardson-20 (KR-20, an ICC for dichotomous data). For task variables and estimated data, ICC(2, 1) varied between 0.66-0.84 for individuals and 0.48-0.93 for teams. The Strain Index score had an ICC(2, 1) of 0.43 and 0.64 for individuals and teams, respectively. For the most important variable, hazard classification, KR-20 was 0.91 for the individuals and 0.89 for the teams.