Enhancing Workplace Outcomes Through Digital Behavioral Health Programs: Retrospective Real-World Study

Modern workplaces create increasing demands on employees, often leading to stress, burnout, and reduced functional capacity. These challenges contribute to significant functionality losses, with absenteeism and presenteeism posing economic burdens. Mindfulness-based workplace interventions have been shown to improve mental health, yet their effects on specific work-related performance outcomes such as concentration difficulties, mistakes, and procrastination over time are less explored.

This study aimed to evaluate self-reported workplace function changes for a 10-week period among users of a digital behavioral health program.

This retrospective analysis used real-world data from users of the Dario Health behavioral health app. Participants were required to complete at least 2 workplace functionality assessments, including one at week 1 as a baseline. The assessment comprised 3 items measuring concentration difficulties, mistakes at work, and procrastination, each rated on a 0 ("not at all") to 3 ("a lot") scale. Users who initially scored 2 ("often") or 3 ("a lot") on each respective measure formed the cohorts for analysis. Longitudinal changes were examined using piecewise linear mixed-effects models. Cut points were selected empirically through sensitivity analyses comparing alternative cut points (weeks 2-7) using Akaike and Bayesian information criteria to identify the best-fitting model for each outcome.

Sensitivity analyses identified optimal cut points at week 6 for concentration difficulties and procrastination and at week 5 for mistakes at work. Among users reporting baseline concentration difficulties (n=1254), significant reductions were observed during weeks 1 to 6 (B=-0.02; P<.001), with larger reductions during weeks 6 to 10 (B=-0.08; P<.001). For mistakes at work (n=167), a significant decrease occurred during weeks 1 to 5 (B=-0.05; P=.02), followed by a more pronounced reduction during weeks 5 to 10 (B=-0.22; P<.001). Among users reporting baseline procrastination (n=1004), significant improvements were observed during weeks 1 to 6 (B=-0.02; P<.001), with greater reductions during weeks 6 to 10 (B=-0.08; P<.001).

Use of the digital behavioral health platform was associated with improvements in workplace function, particularly among users with sustained use beyond 4 weeks. The observed outcomes suggest that continued participation in such digital behavioral health programs may be linked to favorable changes in mental health and cognitive functioning over time and may support employee well-being. Long-term engagement appears essential to maximize benefits, warranting further research into sustained impacts and optimization strategies for workplace productivity.