Harnessing Wearable Devices for Emotional Intelligence: Therapeutic Applications in Digital Health.

Emotional intelligence strives to bridge the gap between human and machine interactions. The application of such systems varies and is becoming more prominent as healthcare services seek to provide more efficient care by utilizing smart digital health apps. One application in digital health is the incorporation of emotion recognition systems as a tool for therapeutic interventions. To this end, a system is designed to collect and analyze physiological signal data, such as electrodermal activity (EDA) and electrocardiogram (ECG), from smart wearable devices. The data are collected from different subjects of varying ages taking part in a study on emotion induction methods. The obtained signals are processed to identify stimulus trigger instances and classify the different reaction stages, as well as arousal strength, using signal processing and machine learning techniques. The reaction stages are identified using a support vector machine algorithm, while the arousal strength is classified using the ResNet50 network architecture. The findings indicate that the EDA signal effectively identifies the emotional trigger, registering a root mean squared error (RMSE) of 0.9871. The features collected from the ECG signal show efficient emotion detection with 94.19% accuracy. However, arousal strength classification is only able to reach 60.37% accuracy on the given dataset. The proposed system effectively detects emotional reactions and can categorize their arousal strength in response to specific stimuli. Such a system could be integrated into therapeutic settings to monitor patients' emotional responses during therapy sessions. This real-time feedback can guide therapists in adjusting their strategies or interventions.

Who uses apps in health promotion? A target group analysis of leaders.

User characteristics should be considered when designing features for e-health or m-health applications, as the developed solution should aim to support this specific target group. This study explores the effect of user characteristics (personality, health state, stress/recovery state, leadership behavior) on the interest and likelihood of using an app for health promotion activities at the workplace. Leaders are a key factor for the success of workplace health promotion; therefore, the target group of this study are leaders. The data of 412 leaders were collected in an online study. Hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses were conducted for four outcome criteria ("personal health," "contacting," "leadership feedback" and "corporate key figures"). The findings showed that neuroticism, physical health and health-promoting leadership were important predictors for using an app for monitoring personal health and getting in social contact about health issues. The stress/recovery state was significantly related to the feature of getting in social contact.

Impact of Age and Hearing Impairment on Work Performance during Long Working Hours.

Based on demographic prognoses, it must be assumed that a greater number of older workers will be found in the future labor market. How to deal with their possible age-related impairments of sensory functions, like hearing impairment and work performance during extended working time, has not been addressed explicitly until now. The study addresses this interplay. The study was performed on two consecutive days after normal working hours. The 55 participants had to "work" in the study at least three additional hours to simulate a situation of long working hours. The tested measures for (job) performance were: general attention, long-term selective attention, concentration, and reaction time. All of the investigated variables were taken at both days of the study (2 × 2 × 2 repeated measurement design). The results show effects for age, the interaction of hearing impairment and time of measurement, and effects of the measurement time. Older participants reacted slower than younger participants did. Furthermore, younger participants reacted more frequently in a correct way. Hearing impairment seems to have a negative impact especially on measures of false reactions, and therefore especially on measurement time 1. The results can be interpreted in a way that hearing-impaired participants are able to compensate their deficits over time.

Enhancing Resources at the Workplace with Health-Promoting Leadership.

Leaders engaging in health-promoting leadership can influence their employees' health directly by showing health awareness or indirectly by changing working conditions. With health-promoting leadership, leaders are able to support a healthy working environment by providing resource-oriented working conditions for their employees to support their health. Changing working conditions in a health-supportive way can prevent possible negative consequences from critical working conditions (e.g., burnout risk). The present study examined the relationship between health-promoting leadership and the employees' resources, stress and burnout. To analyze our proposed model, structural equation modelling was conducted in two samples. The resulting model from the first sample of 228 Austrian workers was cross-validated and could be verified with the second sample (N = 263 Austrian workers). The results supported a model in which health-promoting leadership has a strong direct effect on the employees' resources and an indirect effect on stress and burnout, which was mediated by resources. The results indicate that health-promoting leadership describes the leaders' capability and dedication creating the right working conditions for their employees by increasing the employees' resources at the workplace. This in turn minimizes the risk of experiencing burnout.

Investigation of Psychophysiological and Subjective Effects of Long Working Hours - Do Age and Hearing Impairment Matter?

Following current prognosis, demographic development raises expectations of an aging of the working population. Therefore, keeping employees healthy and strengthening their ability to work, becomes more and more important. When employees become older, dealing with age-related impairments of sensory functions, such as hearing impairment, is a central issue. Recent evidence suggests that negative effects that are associated with reduced hearing can have a strong impact at work. Especially under exhausting working situations such as working overtime hours, age and hearing impairment might influence employees' well-being. Until now, neither the problem of aged workers and long working hours, nor the problem of hearing impairment and prolonged working time has been addressed explicitly. Therefore, a laboratory study was examined to answer the research question: Do age and hearing impairment have an impact on psychophysiological and subjective effects of long working hours. In total, 51 white-collar workers, aged between 24 and 63 years, participated in the laboratory study. The results show no significant effects for age and hearing impairment on the intensity of subjective consequences (perceived recovery and fatigue, subjective emotional well-being and physical symptoms) of long working hours. However, the psychophysiological response (the saliva cortisol level) to long working hours differs significantly between hearing impaired and normal hearing employees. Interestingly, the results suggest that from a psychophysiological point of view long working hours were more demanding for normal hearing employees.