| Methods |
Design: description of an intervention, and intervention implementation
Country: UK
Study aim: to share our service design and pathway of care with other IAPT services who may also seek to support hospital frontline staff within their associated NHS Trusts and in doing so, lay the foundations of a co‐ordinated response
Study recruitment details: not applicable
Setting: hospital
Epidemic/pandemic disease: COVID‐19
Phase of disease outbreak: during the outbreak |
| Participants |
Study population:
Inclusion criteria: ‘frontline workers’ across health and social care provisions of Homerton University Hospital Foundation Trust. This includes, but is not limited to, doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers and volunteers. Support will also be offered to those who uphold the sector without a clinical input such as cleaners, administrators and security personnel.
Exclusion criteria: not reported
Type (profession) of staff: not applicable
Length of time in the profession: not applicable
Previous experience of working in the frontline during an epidemic/pandemic: not applicable
Details of who the frontline staff were providing care for: not applicable |
| Interventions |
1. Homerton Covid Psychological Support’ (HCPS): (n = X)
Type of intervention: psychological support interventions Materials: internet, computer or mobile device -
Procedures: based on the IAPT programme which used a stepped‐care model of service delivery in line with NICE guidelines and the Ebola Psychological Support Service (see Waterman 2018). 3 phases:
screening and risk assessment, PFA, provision of self‐guided help techniques, signposting. This is usually offered during the acute or ‘active’ phases of the outbreak. Remote sessions involve a practitioner screening for mental health symptoms and conducting a risk assessment. Following this, they will "facilitate the caller’s recognition of their own coping strategies and resilience factors but also suggest some additional coping strategies. This will be formalised as a ‘psychological well‐being plan’, which the frontline staff can implement in a self‐guided manner". group‐based psycho‐educational CBT interventions delivered via teleconference or face‐to‐face following social distancing measures. In addition, they could access digital provisions of support (e.g. Silvercloud). In addition to these CBT‐orientated interventions, HCPS will also be providing the ‘20minCareSpace’ pilot intervention to frontline staff on‐site or remotely, which is based on ‘Compassion Circles’ and has the aim of promoting self‐care and self‐compassion (see Scior 2020) high‐intensity psychological therapy (e.g. CBT) provided by IAPT services for people who have persistent difficulties. This could include people identified in phase one who could be directly referred due to having pre‐existing mental health problems or severe symptoms.
Provided by: psychological practitioners. Services could be delivered within the Trust or online. Others may be referred to the local IAPT service. Delivery: 1:1 and group, face‐to‐face and remote Regimen: as required Tailoring: yes ‐ personalised for each individual Modification: no. Per protocol Adherence: not applicable Details of any adverse events/unintended consequences: not applicable
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| Outcomes |
Outcomes: no data have been collected but a process evaluation study is planned to measure PHQ‐9, GAD‐7, WSAS and TSQ. Findings with regard to the pilot evaluation of the 20minCareSpace intervention offered during phase 2 will be included in the overall pilot evaluation being conducted by University College London (Scior 2020)
Data collection: no data collected |
| Notes |
Planned process evaluation study has been reported by authors; authors contacted for further information |
