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Brief Digital Interventions to Support the Psychological Well-being of NHS Staff During the COVID-19 Pandemic: 3-Arm Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.
De Kock, Johannes H; Latham, Helen Ann; Cowden, Richard G; Cullen, Breda; Narzisi, Katia; Jerdan, Shaun; Munoz, Sarah-Anne; Leslie, Stephen J; Stamatis, Andreas; Eze, Jude.
  • De Kock JH; Division of Rural Health and Wellbeing, Institute of Health Research and Innovation, School of Health, University of the Highlands and Islands, Inverness, United Kingdom.
  • Latham HA; Department of Clinical Psychology, New Craigs Psychiatric Hospital, Inverness, United Kingdom.
  • Cowden RG; Nairn Town and Country Hospital, NHS Highland, United Kingdom.
  • Cullen B; Human Flourishing Program, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States.
  • Narzisi K; Institute of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom.
  • Jerdan S; Division of Rural Health and Wellbeing, Institute of Health Research and Innovation, School of Health, University of the Highlands and Islands, Inverness, United Kingdom.
  • Munoz SA; Division of Rural Health and Wellbeing, Institute of Health Research and Innovation, School of Health, University of the Highlands and Islands, Inverness, United Kingdom.
  • Leslie SJ; Division of Rural Health and Wellbeing, Institute of Health Research and Innovation, School of Health, University of the Highlands and Islands, Inverness, United Kingdom.
  • Stamatis A; Cardiac Unit, Raigmore Hospital, NHS Highland, Inverness, United Kingdom.
  • Eze J; Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, State University of New York, Plattsburgh, NY, United States.
JMIR Ment Health ; 9(4): e34002, 2022 Apr 04.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1779874
ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:

Health and social care staff are at high risk of experiencing adverse mental health (MH) outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, there is a need to prioritize and identify ways to effectively support their psychological well-being (PWB). Compared to traditional psychological interventions, digital psychological interventions are cost-effective treatment options that allow for large-scale dissemination and transcend social distancing, overcome rurality, and minimize clinician time.

OBJECTIVE:

This study reports MH outcomes of a Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT)-compliant parallel-arm pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) examining the potential usefulness of an existing and a novel digital psychological intervention aimed at supporting psychological health among National Health Service (NHS) staff working through the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS:

NHS Highland (NHSH) frontline staff volunteers (N=169) were randomly assigned to the newly developed NHSH Staff Wellbeing Project (NHSWBP), an established digital intervention (My Possible Self [MPS]), or a waitlist (WL) group for 4 weeks. Attempts were made to blind participants to which digital intervention they were allocated. The interventions were fully automated, without any human input or guidance. We measured 5 self-reported psychological outcomes over 3 time points before (baseline), in the middle of (after 2 weeks), and after treatment (4 weeks). The primary outcomes were anxiety (7-item General Anxiety Disorder), depression (Patient Health Questionnaire), and mental well-being (Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale). The secondary outcomes included mental toughness (Mental Toughness Index) and gratitude (Gratitude Questionnaire-6).

RESULTS:

Retention rates mid- and postintervention were 77% (n=130) and 63.3% (n=107), respectively. Postintervention, small differences were noted between the WL and the 2 treatment groups on anxiety (vs MPS Cohen d=0.07, 95% CI -0.20 to 0.33; vs NHSWBP Cohen d=0.06, 95% CI -0.19 to 0.31), depression (vs MPS Cohen d=0.37, 95% CI 0.07-0.66; vs NHSWBP Cohen d=0.18, 95% CI -0.11 to 0.46), and mental well-being (vs MPS Cohen d=-0.04, 95% CI -0.62 to -0.08; vs NHSWBP Cohen d=-0.15, 95% CI -0.41 to 0.10). A similar pattern of between-group differences was found for the secondary outcomes. The NHSWBP group generally had larger within-group effects than the other groups and displayed a greater rate of change compared to the other groups on all outcomes, except for gratitude, where the rate of change was greatest for the MPS group.

CONCLUSIONS:

Our analyses provided encouraging results for the use of brief digital psychological interventions in improving PWB among health and social care workers. Future multisite RCTs, with power to reliably detect differences, are needed to determine the efficacy of contextualized interventions relative to existing digital treatments. TRIAL REGISTRATION ISRCTN Registry (ISRCTN) ISRCTN18107122; https//www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN18107122.
Keywords

Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Type of study: Experimental Studies / Observational study / Prognostic study / Randomized controlled trials Language: English Journal: JMIR Ment Health Year: 2022 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: 34002

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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Type of study: Experimental Studies / Observational study / Prognostic study / Randomized controlled trials Language: English Journal: JMIR Ment Health Year: 2022 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: 34002