A Functionalistic Stress Recovery Intervention Improves Perceived Recovery Opportunities and Relaxational Behaviors: A Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Trial

Niclas Almén ()
Additional contact information
Niclas Almén: Department of Psychology and Social Work, Mid Sweden University, 83125 Östersund, Sweden

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 21, 1-11

Abstract: The recovery perspective on stress management is new and few recovery intervention studies have been conducted. The aim of the study was to evaluate behavioral effects of a functionalistic stress recovery intervention, in which individuals perceiving high levels of stress were encouraged to pay attention to possibilities to perform potential recovery behaviors in everyday life and to choose behaviors that were predicted to lead to resource restoration. Seventy-three individuals were randomly allocated to either a 10-week intervention or a waiting-list control group. Three types of recovery behavior factors during leisure time were studied: perceived recovery opportunities (i.e., control), relaxational behaviors (i.e., relaxation), and positively challenging behaviors (i.e., mastery). In comparison with the control group, the intervention group significantly improved, showing high between-group effect sizes, regarding perceived recovery opportunities ( p < 0.001; d = 0.75) and relaxational behaviors ( p < 0.001; d = 0.80). Both groups normalized their levels of positively challenging behaviors between pre- and postassessment, and no statistically significant group difference was demonstrated. Analyses of reliable and clinically significant changes demonstrated results in favor of the intervention group regarding perceived recovery opportunities and relaxational behaviors but not positively challenging behaviors. The tested intervention warrants further research, for example, if a modified version of the intervention including components aiming at increasing postwork positively challenging behaviors would be beneficial for the improvement of the behavior and for health.

Keywords: stress management: behavior change; intervention; prolonged stress; stress recovery; recovery experiences; control; relaxation; mastery; RCT (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/21/14005/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/21/14005/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:21:p:14005-:d:955340

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().