Health care worker experiences with a brief peer support and well-being intervention during the COVID-19 pandemic

Health care workers (HCW) faced chronic stress during the COVID-19 pandemic and were at high risk of illness, death and burnout.

To understand the experiences of and assess the acceptability and usability of the "Stress First Aid" (SFA) intervention for HCWs.

We used a mixed methods approach to conduct: (1) a quantitative post-intervention survey of experiences with the SFA intervention within a cluster randomized controlled trial (cRCT); and (2) a qualitative descriptive analysis. The intervention was rolled out over three waves from March 2021 - October 2022 simultaneously with the sites' COVID-19 response.

Our team engaged and recruited eight pairs of hospitals and six pairs of Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), balanced across region, including nine states, and matched on size, type, and COVID-19 burden.

A total of 862 HCWs received the SFA intervention and completed both the pre- and post-intervention surveys (FQHC n = 245 and hospital n = 617). For the qualitative analysis, among HCWs who agreed to be contacted for a post-intervention interview, we purposively sampled a subset of 35 HCWs balanced by site, gender, age, race/ethnicity and HCW type.

SFA is an evidence-informed intervention adapted to mitigate the psychosocial impact of COVID-19 on HCWs through individual peer support actions.

Quantitative measures are binary indicators of agreement with 6 questions about experiences with the SFA intervention. For the qualitative analysis, we utilized a semi-structured interview protocol to provide additional context on experience with SFA and how SFA affects HCW well-being.

Between 48.2 and 59.4% of HCWs agreed or strongly agreed that they: found SFA helpful (48.2%), felt comfortable supporting colleagues (59.4%), would recommend SFA (51.2%), and would continue to use SFA principles (57.2%). Non-White HCWs (particularly Black HCWs), those in assistant/technician positions and those who reported attending a greater number of booster sessions were more likely to agree with positive statements about SFA experiences.

Given the continued resurgence of public health emergencies, its lasting effects on HCWs, and related emerging challenges, we expect there to be a continued need for support of patient-facing HCWs.

Clinical Trials.gov Number: NCT04723576 Registered on 01/22/2021 Clinicaltrials.govNCT04723576.