COVID-Well Study: Qualitative Evaluation of Supported Wellbeing Centres and Psychological First Aid for Healthcare Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Holly Blake, Alisha Gupta, Mahnoor Javed, Ben Wood, Steph Knowles, Emma Coyne and Joanne Cooper
Additional contact information
Holly Blake: School of Health Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2HA, UK
Alisha Gupta: School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2UH, UK
Mahnoor Javed: School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2UH, UK
Ben Wood: Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham NG7 2UH, UK
Steph Knowles: Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham NG7 2UH, UK
Emma Coyne: Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham NG7 2UH, UK
Joanne Cooper: Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham NG7 2UH, UK

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 7, 1-27

Abstract: Supported wellbeing centres were set up in UK hospital trusts as an early intervention aimed at mitigating the psychological impact of COVID-19 on healthcare workers. These provided high quality rest spaces with peer-to-peer psychological support provided by National Health Service (NHS) staff volunteers called ‘wellbeing buddies’, trained in psychological first aid. The aim of the study was to explore the views of centre visitors and operational staff towards this COVID-19 workforce wellbeing provision. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were undertaken with twenty-four (20F, 4M) employees from an acute hospital trust in the UK. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed, data were handled and analysed using thematic analysis. Interviews generated 3 over-arching themes, and 13 sub-themes covering ‘exposure and job roles’, ‘emotional impacts of COVID-19 and ‘the wellbeing centres’. Supported wellbeing centres were viewed as critical for the wellbeing of hospital employees during the first surge of COVID-19 in the UK. Wellbeing initiatives require managerial advocacy and must be inclusive. Job-related barriers to work breaks and accessing staff wellbeing provisions should be addressed. High quality rest spaces and access to peer-to-peer support are seen to benefit individuals, teams, organisations and care quality. Training NHS staff in psychological first aid is a useful approach to supporting the wellbeing of the NHS workforce during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; pandemic; psychological wellbeing; workforce; peer-to-peer support (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/7/3626/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/7/3626/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:7:p:3626-:d:527420

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().