Pilot Study of Let’s Get Organized: A Group Intervention for Improving Time Management

Abstract

Date Presented 03/27/20

The Let’s Get Organized–Swedish Part 1 pilot study shows feasibility for use in psychiatric and habilitation outpatient services. Participants took part in a 10-week manual-based group intervention for 1 ½ hours weekly. Each session has a separate theme, a common structure and goal (to implement use of a calendar), and cognitive strategies for managing time. This study uses OT standardized tools to measure results that were promising and need confirmation in further studies.

Primary Author and Speaker: Suzanne White

Additional Authors and Speakers: Kajsa Lidström Holmqvist, Marie Holmefur

Contributing Authors: Gunnel Janeslätt, Afsaneh Roshanay, Patrik Arvidsson

PURPOSE: Human occupation takes place in a context in which time is a consideration. Time provides a rhythm and an organizational structure to performance patterns. Time management skills are important in order to establish or maintain an occupational balance.

To manage time satisfactorily executive functions are needed to organizes, schedule, and prioritizes occupations. Good time management is positively associated with good health, high job satisfaction and manageable stress.

New health behaviors to prevent and manage chronic conditions need to be integrated into daily occupations. Reallocation of time or learning new cognitive strategies to preform previous routine tasks needs to be addressed. This research examines to what extent Let’s Get Organized (LGO-S) enhances time management skills, aspects of executive function and satisfaction in daily occupations in people with time management difficulties because of neurodevelopmental or mental disorders.

DESIGN: One-group pretest-posttest design with 3-month follow-up. The participants in this study were recruited from psychiatric and habilitation outpatient services. Inclusion criteria were confirmed or suspected diagnosis of a mental disorder, such as affective disorder or psychosis, or a neurodevelopmental disorder, such as ASD or ADHD in the absence of intellectual disability, (literate) and self-reported difficulties in time management to the an extent that negatively affects functioning in daily occupations.

METHOD: Data was collected by trained OTs at three time points; pre- and post-intervention and 3 months post intervention. The Assessment of Time Management Skills-Swedish (ATMS-S) was collected on all three occasions; Weekly Calendar Planning Activity (WCPA-SE) and Satisfaction with Daily Occupations (SDO-13) were collected pre- and post- intervention. The pre-intervention demographic data collection also included the study-specific questionnaire.

The pre- and post-intervention scores for all measures and the 3-month follow-up ATMS-S scores were compared with the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The significance level was set at <0.05. All calculations were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 24.

RESULTS: A sample of 55 participants displayed significantly improved time management, organization and planning skills, and emotional regulation, as well as satisfaction with daily occupations. Aspects of executive functioning were partly improved. The ATMS–S results were sustained at 3-mo follow-up. The ATMS-S result was stable between post-intervention and the 3-month follow-up further strengthen our results. The hypothesis that the sustained improvement was caused by the LGO intervention. The WCPA-SE after the intervention showed that there was a significant improvement in the number of correctly entered appointments, which, in our view is the most important result of the WCPA as it demonstrates the goals of LGO. The SDO-13 showed the number of activities performed increased significantly from 7.3 to 8.3 (p=0.001) from pre- to post-intervention. In addition, the mean satisfaction with activities increased from 54.9 to 61.1 (p<0.001).

CONCLUSION: The results show the LGO-S Part 1 intervention is a promising intervention with potential to enhance time management skills, build cognitive strategy use, and satisfaction with daily occupations and should be investigated further in a randomized trial. The used instruments appear to be sensitive to capture change from the intervention.

References

Holmefur, M., Roshanay, A., Lidström-Holmqvist, K., Arvidsson, P., White, S., & Janeslätt, G. (August 2019) Pilot study of the “Let’s get organized”-a group intervention for improving time management. American Journal of Occupational Therapy Vol. 73, 7305205020p1-7305205020p10. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2019.032631.

Janeslätt, G., Lidström Holmqvist, K., Holmefur, M., & White, S. (Sept 7, 2017) Assessment of Time Management Skills: psychometric properties of the Swedish version. Swedish Occupational Therapy Journal, 1-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/11038128.2017.1375009

Eklund, M., & Gunnarsson, A. B. (2007). Satisfaction With Daily Occupations: Construct validity and test–retest reliability of a screening tool for people with mental health disorders. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 54, 59–65. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1440-1630.2006.00586.x

Lidström-Holmqvist, K., Holmefur, M., & Arvidsson, P., (February 2019). Test-retest reliability of the Swedish version of the Weekly Calendar Planning Activity- a performance-based test of executive functioning. Disabil Rehabil. 20:1-6. dio.10.1080/09638288.2019.1568590