Premium
Treatment of chronic stress in employees: Subjective, cognitive and neural correlates
Author(s) -
BERGDAHL JAN,
LARSSON ANNE,
NILSSON LARSGÖRAN,
ÅHLSTRÖM KATRINE RIKLUND,
NYBERG LARS
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2005.00470.x
Subject(s) - affect (linguistics) , psychology , cognition , clinical psychology , functional magnetic resonance imaging , episodic memory , stress (linguistics) , psychiatry , linguistics , philosophy , communication , neuroscience
This study reports the effect of an affect‐focused intervention program, the Affect School, on stress, psychological symptoms, cognitive functioning and neural activity. Fifty employees in social service and education, with high levels of chronic stress, were randomly divided into a treatment ( N = 27) and control ( N = 23) group. Complete sets of data were available in 20 participants in the treatment group and 17 in the control group. The Perceived Stress Questionnaire assessed stress and the Symptom Check List‐90 psychological symptoms before and after treatment. Episodic‐memory functioning under focused and divided attention conditions was also assessed. Prior and after the Affect School, seven participants in the treatment group were studied with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during episodic memory processing. After the Affect School there was a reduction in stress and psychological symptoms for the treatment group but not in the control group. The controls showed a reduction in episodic memory functioning whereas the performance of the treatment group remained intact. The fMRI scanning indicated a qualitative change in the neural network subserving episodic memory. These preliminary results suggest that the Affect School is effective on individuals with high stress.