Department of Mental Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan.
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Chiyoda-ku, Japan.
BMC Psychol. 2021 Feb 23;9(1):35. doi: 10.1186/s40359-021-00541-6.
Work engagement is one of the most important outcomes for both employees and employers. Although the findings to date, integrated 40 intervention studies aiming to improve work engagement, consistent results have not yet been produced, suggesting the importance of further intervention studies. This study aims to investigate the effects of gratitude intervention programs focused on two important work engagement factors among Japanese workers: personal and job resources.
This study will be a two-arm, parallel-group cluster (organization) randomized control trial. Japanese organizations and nested employees will be recruited through the first author's acquaintances using snowball sampling. Organizations that meet the inclusion criteria will be randomly allocated to intervention or control groups in a 1:1 ratio within the company unit. The intervention groups will be provided with a 1-month long gratitude intervention program, which aims to promote reciprocal gratitude exchanges within the same organization. The program consists of psychoeducation, gratitude lists, and behavioral gratitude expression. The control groups will not receive any intervention. The primary outcome will be work engagement measured by the Japanese version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale at baseline and after 1 (immediate post-survey), 3, and 6 months. Multilevel latent growth modeling will be conducted to examine the effectiveness of the intervention program.
This study will be the first cluster randomized controlled trial applied to the investigation of gratitude intervention aimed at improving work engagement among Japanese workers; to promote reciprocal gratitude exchanges within a given organization; and to include both gratitude lists and behavioral gratitude expression. Gratitude interventions have several strengths in terms of implementation: the objectives of the exercises are easy to understand and implement; it does not require much time or expense; they tend to have lower dropout rates; and they do not require experts in psychology. Although implementation difficulties have been common in previous interventions targeting work engagement, gratitude intervention may be suitable even for workers who have limited time to devote to the tasks.
This study was registered at the University Hospital Medical Information Network Clinical Trials Registry (UMIN-CTR, ID=UMIN000042546): https://upload.umin.ac.jp/cgi-open-bin/ctr/ctr_view.cgi?recptno=R000048566 on November 25, 2020.
工作投入是员工和雇主双方都非常关注的重要结果之一。尽管迄今为止已有 40 项干预研究旨在提高工作投入，但仍未得出一致的结果，这表明进一步开展干预研究的重要性。本研究旨在探讨以日本员工的两个重要工作投入因素（个人和工作资源）为重点的感恩干预方案的效果。
本研究将采用两臂、平行组（组织）随机对照试验（cluster-randomized controlled trial）。将通过第一作者的熟人使用滚雪球抽样的方式招募日本组织和嵌套员工。符合纳入标准的组织将在公司单位内按 1:1 的比例随机分配到干预组或对照组。干预组将接受为期 1 个月的感恩干预方案，旨在促进同一组织内的互惠感恩交流。该方案包括心理教育、感恩清单和行为感恩表达。对照组将不接受任何干预。主要结局指标为基线时和干预后 1（即时后测）、3 和 6 个月时采用日本版乌得勒支工作投入量表（Utrecht Work Engagement Scale）测量的工作投入。采用多层次潜在增长模型（multilevel latent growth modeling）检验干预方案的效果。
本研究将是首个应用于调查感恩干预对提高日本员工工作投入效果的群组随机对照试验；旨在促进给定组织内的互惠感恩交流；并包括感恩清单和行为感恩表达。感恩干预在实施方面具有以下几个优势：练习的目标易于理解和实施；不需要太多时间或费用；它们往往具有较低的辍学率；而且不需要心理学方面的专家。尽管以前针对工作投入的干预措施在实施方面存在困难，但感恩干预即使对那些没有时间投入任务的员工也可能是合适的。
本研究于 2020 年 11 月 25 日在大学医院医疗信息网络临床试验注册中心（UMIN-CTR，ID=UMIN000042546）注册：https://upload.umin.ac.jp/cgi-open-bin/ctr/ctr_view.cgi?recptno=R000048566。
