RCSI Coach Connect: Delivering Coaching to Healthcare Professionals via an Online Digital Health Platform — ASN Events
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RCSI Coach Connect: Delivering Coaching to Healthcare Professionals via an Online Digital Health Platform (#106)

Roisin O'Donovan 1 , Croia Loughnane 1 , Ruth Kelly 1 , Domini Kemp 2 , Lisa McCarthy 1 , Jennifer Donnelly 1 , Gozie Offiah 3 , Annette Sweeney 2 , Padraic J Dunne 1
  1. Centre for Positive Psychology and Health, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dublin, Ireland
  2. Culinary nutrition, TUD Tallaght, Dublin, Ireland
  3. Department of Surgery, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dublin, Ireland

Background

Healthcare workers (HCWs) report poor wellbeing, high work-related stress and burnout (1, 2). This has heightened the need to implement approaches to improve and maintain HCW wellbeing (3-6). The majority of current digital solutions involve user-support through artificial intelligence (AI) and chat-bot services only.

Aims

The primary objective was to examine the feasibility of a coach-led digital health platform at improving wellbeing and mitigating burnout. The secondary objective was to examine changes in wellbeing (measured by the PERMA-NHL Profiler) and burnout (measured by the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory) among HCWs over a 12-week period.

Methods

Twenty-four HCWs were randomly stratified into waitlist control (n=13) and intervention (n=11) groups, based on gender, age, role and location. Participants were onboarded onto the digital platform between September 2021 and January 2022. Eleven participants (from both study groups) took part in qualitative interviews to explore their experiences of participating in the study and to identify enablers and barriers to their engagement with the platform. 

Results

Engagement with the coaching process was high at the beginning but tapered as the project proceeded. Evidence from 11 qualitative interviews revealed that while the majority of participants from both groups did not return for subsequent review sessions with the coach, they continued to reap the benefits of their first appointments. These engagements enhanced self-awareness about personal health, which contributed to improved wellbeing and diminished burnout. There was an improvement in intervention group (n=11) Wellbeing from T1 (week1) to T2 (week 12) (p=.01, d= 1.39). This included a significant improvement in Positive Emotion (p=.006, d=1.86), Happiness (p=.04, d= 1.08) and Health (p=.04, d=1.1) at T1 and T2. There was a significant reduction in Negative Emotion (p=.02, d=1.3), Burnout (p=.04, d= 1.05) and Emotional Exhaustion (p=.02, d=1.31).  

Conclusion

RCSI Coach Connect represents a feasible coach-led, digital health platform to improve the wellbeing of HCWs. However, more work is required with a larger cohort.

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  2. 2. O’Connor DB, Hall LH, Johnson J. Job strain, burnout, wellbeing and patient safety in healthcare professionals. Connecting Healthcare Worker Well-Being, Patient Safety and Organisational Change: Springer; 2020. p. 11-23.
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  4. 4. Rehder K, Adair KC, Sexton JB. The science of health care worker burnout: Assessing and improving health care worker well-being. Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine. 2021;145(9):1095-109.
  5. 5. National Academies of Sciences E, Medicine. Taking action against clinician burnout: a systems approach to professional well-being. 2019.
  6. 6. Søvold LE, Naslund JA, Kousoulis AA, Saxena S, Qoronfleh MW, Grobler C, et al. Prioritizing the mental health and well-being of healthcare workers: an urgent global public health priority. Frontiers in public health. 2021;9:679397.
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