NHS CHECK: protocol for a cohort study investigating the psychosocial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers

Abstract

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has had profound effects on the working lives of healthcare workers (HCWs), but the extent to which their well-being and mental health have been affected remains unclear. This longitudinal cohort study aims to recruit a cohort of NHS healthcare workers, conducting surveys at regular intervals to provide evidence about the prevalence of symptoms of mental disorders, investigate associated factors such as occupational contexts and support interventions available. Methods and Analysis All staff, students, and volunteers working in each of the 18 participating NHS Trusts in England will be sent emails inviting them to complete a survey at baseline, with email invitations for the follow up surveys being sent 6 and 12 months later. Opening in late April 2020, the baseline survey collects data on demographics, occupational and organisational factors, experiences of COVID-19, a number of validated measures of symptoms of poor mental health (e.g. depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder; PTSD), and measures of constructs such as resilience and moral injury. These regular surveys will be complemented by in-depth psychiatric interviews with a select sample of healthcare workers. Qualitative interviews will also be conducted, to gain deeper understanding of the support programmes used or desired by staff, and facilitators and barriers to accessing such programmes. Ethics and Dissemination Ethical approval for the study was granted by the Health Research Authority (reference: 20/HRA/210, IRAS: 282686) and local Trust Research and Development approval. Cohort data are being collected via Qualtrics online survey software, are pseudonymised and held on secure University servers. Participants are aware that they can withdraw from the study at any time, and there is signposting to support services for any participant who feels they need it. Only those consenting to be contacted about further research will be invited to participate in the psychiatric and qualitative interview components of the study. Findings will be rapidly shared with NHS Trusts to enable better support of staff during the pandemic, and via academic publications in due course.

Experiences and impact of moral injury in U.K. veterinary professional wellbeing

“…The significant association found between experiences of moral injury and VP symptoms of PTSD is consistent with previous studies of moral injury in other high-risk samples, including military, police and healthcare staff (Greenberg, Docherty, Gnanapragasam, & Wessely, 2020 ; Lamb et al, 2021 ; Williamson et al, 2021c ). As the majority of existing literature has focused on military samples, this study furthers our understanding of moral injury by illustrating that moral injury can be experienced by and deleteriously impact the mental health of staff in other non-military occupational settings.…”

“…It is worth noting that recruitment for this study took place during the social distancing restrictions employed by the U.K. Government to control COVID-19 (March 2020–April 2021), meaning VPs may have been unable to see clients face-to-face, may have had inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE) when interacting with clients, or had to juggle working with caregiving responsibilities as schools were often closed. As recent studies have shown that the mental health of staff working in other occupations during the pandemic has been adversely affected by these circumstances (Lamb et al, 2021 ), it is possible that the mental health of VPs has been similarly impacted and this warrants further investigation.…”

Protocol: A two-wave cross-sectional study in England investigating suicidal behaviour and self-harm amongst healthcare workers during the Covid-19 pandemic

“…NHS Check is a multi-wave online survey that was distributed to all staff (clinical and non-clinical), students, and volunteers in 18 NHS Trusts across England during the Covid-19 pandemic 13 . Data from the 17 Trusts (those with a response rate of over 5%) will be included in this analysis.…”

“…In wave 2, questions relating to suicide and self-harm were included in the “short” survey. Further details regarding data collection can be found elsewhere 13 .…”

Experiences of mental health and wellbeing support for NHS staff during the COVID-19 pandemic: a reflexive thematic analysis

“…This study was nested within 'NHS CHECK', a longitudinal cohort study monitoring the physical and mental health of English HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic (Lamb et al, 2021). Eighteen NHS Trusts (acute and mental health) from across England were invited to participate in the study, purposively selected to represent a variety of geographic locations and serving populations with a range of sociodemographic characteristics in urban, suburban, and rural contexts.…”