Sedentary time and physical inactivity have negative impacts on health and health costs as well as an impact on workplace wellbeing. There is evidence that people are more sedentary and engage in less physical activity on work days. Additionally, sedentary behavior has been found to increase distress and negative mood. Activity trackers such as Fitbits are a useful way to collect and intervene on sedentary behavior and potentially impact other factors of workplace wellbeing in real time and promote self-monitoring. The reminder to move prompts that are now part of Fitbit models provide an innovative and simple way to intervene on workplace sedentary behavior with hourly movement prompts. This study examined the impact of an intervention on sedentary time at work with Fitbit reminders to move and what impact the intervention had on other factors of workplace wellbeing including depression, positive and negative affect, job stress, and productivity. Participants were university employees who wore a Fitbit device for three weeks and completed pre-and post-study measures. For the first week, the Fitbit displayed only the watch screen with no access to other data. This was done to establish baseline data. For the second week, the Fitbit device and Fitbit app allowed for self-monitoring by displaying the activity being tracked, including steps, distance, calories expenditure, and stairs walked. For the third week, the sedentary time reduction was implemented by activating the Fitbit application reminder to move. This caused the Fitbit to vibrate at the 50-minute mark of the hour if the participant had not moved 250 steps in that time. Results show that having the reminders to move prompt activated decreased sedentary time at work and increased steps throughout the day on work days. These changes in sedentary time significantly contributed to decreases in depression. From the start of the study to after the intervention, on average participants reported significantly less depression, negative affect, and stress and more positive affect, affect balance, social functioning, physical functioning, and productivity at work. The benefits of in the moment self-monitoring and an intervention around sedentary time with Fitbits on factors of workplace wellbeing are discussed as well as limitations, and future directions.

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Studien undersökte hur välbefinnandet hos personer med flykerfarenhet påverkas både momentant och långsiktigt av exponering av nyhetsmedia kring andra människor på flykt, och hantering av de känslor som uppkommer. Detta gjordes genom skriftliga intervjuer och analyserades med hjälp av tidigare forskning och teori kring känslohantering genom innehållsanalys. Resultatet visade att medieexponering gav upphov till minnen och ett brett spektrum av känslor. Vissa av känslorna var gemensamma men hanteringen av dessa skiljde sig åt, vilket kan ha betydande konsekvenser på ett samhälleligt plan.

Between 20% and 57% of patients at community mental health centers miss their first mental health appointment, resulting in wasted resources and longer wait times for other patients. To date, only one peer-reviewed quantitative study examined the relationship between appointment reminder practices and children's and adolescents' first appointment attendance rates for community mental health centers. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between first appointment wait times, electronic appointment reminders, phone appointment reminders, and first appointment attendance for U.S. community mental health centers, along with the potential moderating effects of age, ethnicity, and gender. Blumer's symbolic interaction theory served as the theoretical framework. Secondary data on was collected from 12 Texas-based community mental health centers covering 5,260 patients. Binary logistic regression uncovered the following key study findings: (a) wait time and message type significantly predicted appointment attendance; (b) e-mail appointment and text reminders were significantly more effective than were phone reminders; and (c) age, gender, and ethnicity moderated the relationship between wait time and message type, and first appointment attendance. The implications for positive social change include improving our understanding of the optimal appointment reminder tactics that increase children's and adolescents' mental health appointment attendance rates, improve operating efficiency of community health centers, and increase the likelihood that children and adolescents will receive needed mental health services.

tLess than half of all adults meet the federal exercise recommendations (CDC, 2010) and college-aged adults may be more vulnerable to the consequences of physical inactivity with about two-thirds of college students leading sedentary lifestyles (Harvey-Berino, Pope, Gold, et al., 2012; Tully & Cupples, 2011). Mobile apps provide an efficient way to track physical activity and electronic prompts can enhance mobile apps by reminding individuals to participate. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a mobile app and electronic prompts sent via Twitter for promoting exercise motivation and adherence in sedentary university students. The hypotheses tested were: (a) a significantly greater percentage of participants in the treatment group would progress through the stages-of-change (SOC) from pre- to post-program compared to the control group, and (b) the treatment group would demonstrate significantly greater exercise adherence than the control group. Thirteen participants followed an 8-week running program on a mobile app. The control group (n = 8) followed the running program while the treatment group (n = 5) also received electronic prompts sent via Twitter to remind participants to exercise. The SOC modified four stage algorithm was used pre- and post-program to assess exercise motivation. Exercise adherence was measured by total number of completed workouts out of the 24 prescribed. A significantly greater number of participants in the control group progressed at least one stage from pre- to post-program compared to participants in the treatment group, χ2 = 6.9, p = 0.008. Additionally, participants in the control group reported a greater number of completed workouts (M = 12.5, SD = 7.6) compared to the participants in the treatment group (M = 3.6, SD = 4.0). These findings suggest that while the mobile app may be beneficial for promoting exercise motivation and adherence, the electronic prompts sent via Twitter appeared to have no effect. Further studies are needed to determine the most effective way to use Twitter to increase exercise motivation and adherence of sedentary university students.

Appointment no-shows are a problem in healthcare organizations. It is important that appointment intake and scheduling processes are effective in both meeting client needs and efficient in meeting organizational business requirements. This study examined baseline levels of appointment keeping in a not-for-profit medical/behavioral pediatric services clinic, analyzed existing administrative processes, introduced additional appointment keeping reminders, and presented systematic, performance management tutorials for clinic employees. Results indicate an increase in percentage of appointments kept and a decrease in appointment lag time.

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The engagement in multiple activities in the workplace leads to the challenge of managing several tasks. When managing multiple tasks, it may be difficult to remember to complete all tasks. Within an operations team at a hedge fund, there are demands that all trades are reported by the end of the day to the correct prime brokerage. This thesis examines the research question: How can a GUI be designed to remind and aid users to verify that trade information has been managed correctly? The research was conducted at a financial company, and focused on improving the workflow for one of the company’s clients and its operations team. To identify the challenges of a financial operator, contextual inquiries were conducted, followed by a design workshop to generate design ideas. The results were used as inspiration for the prototype of a GUI. The prototype was evaluated through cognitive walkthroughs, expert review, and with end users. The prototype was found to aid financial operators to verify if there was any work left, but the reminder aspect would need to be examined with a real system during an extended period. / Att engagera sig i flertalet aktiviteter på en arbetsplats leder till utmaningen att hantera många uppgifter. När det finns många uppgifter att hantera, kan det vara svårt att komma ihåg att slutföra alla uppgifter. Inom ett operationsteam på en hedgefond finns krav att alla värdepappersaffärer ska vara rapporterade innan dagens slut till rätt huvudmäklarfirma (prime brokerage). Denna uppsats undersöker forskningsfrågan: Hur kan ett GUI designas för att påminna och underlätta för användaren att verifiera att information om värdepappersaffärer har hanterats korrekt? Forskningen genomfördes på ett finansiellt företag och fokuserade på att underlätta arbetsflödet för en av företagets kunder och dess operationsteam. För att identifiera utmaningarna för en finansiell operatör genomfördes kontextuella intervjuer, vilka följdes av en designworkshop för att generera designidéer. Resultaten användes som inspiration till en prototyp för ett GUI. Prototypen utvärderades genom kognitiv genomgång (cognitive walkthrough), expertgranskning och med slutanvändare. Prototypen ansågs underlätta för finansiella operatörer att verifiera om det fanns kvarvarande uppgifter, men påminnelseaspekten skulle behöva undersökas ytterligare med ett fullt utvecklat system under en längre period.

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