Effectiveness of a group-based time-management intervention: a pragmatic randomised controlled trial

Time management is essential to handle daily life in today's society. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Swedish version of the Let's Get Organised (LGO-S) intervention to improve time-management skills for adults with impaired time management due to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism or mental disorders compared to treatment as usual (TAU), which is individual occupational therapy.

This was a multi-centre, open, two-armed pragmatic randomised controlled trial. The setting was out-patient adult habilitation centres and psychiatric clinics. At baseline the study had 75 participants aged 19-61 years (mean 32.3 years) whereof 44 were women.

Both intervention groups showed statistically significant improvements in time-management skills, organisation and planning, emotional regulation, general self-efficacy and satisfaction with activities at post-intervention test. Most of these within-group improvements were sustained after 3 months. Changes in time-management skills between LGO-S and TAU intervention were not statistically significant at post-intervention or after 3-months. Programme completers in LGO-S had significantly better time management skills at the 3-month follow-up than non-completers.

This pragmatic RCT, conducted in a clinical environment including participants with complex difficulties, showed that both LGO-S and individual occupational therapy are clinically useful/applicable interventions that effectively improve time-management skills.