A new
study has shown that Psychological First Aid, training originally created for
people to support others, can help healthcare workers in care homes improve
their own mental wellbeing.
First
developed by the World Health Organisation, Psychological First Aid (PFA) is
the globally recommended training for people, such as healthcare workers, who support
others during emergencies.
It offers
guidance on delivering psychosocial care in the immediate aftermath of an
emergency event.
Although PFA
training was originally created for people to support others, scientists from
Northumbria University and the University of Highlands and Islands (UHI) have
now also identified it as a suitable way of helping care workers look after
their own mental health and wellbeing.
As part of
the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in June 2020 the UK government
introduced free to access online PFA training in an effort to support frontline
staff, such the 1.8 million people working in care homes across the
country.
Evaluating
the effectiveness of this initiative, academics at Northumbria and UHI investigated
the uptake of PFA
training among healthcare workers in UK care homes and assessed its effects on
their wellbeing.
Funded by
the Royal College of Nursing Foundation, the study was the first of its kind
and makes recommendations regarding further implementation of Psychological
First Aid.
The researchers
found that while the uptake of PFA training was low among healthcare workers - less
than 10% of study participants had done the training - those who had undertaken
PFA coped better.
The results
suggest that PFA training helped in overcoming stress and coping via
self-growth and improving relationships with others, but there was a concern
around accessibility, which academics say could possibly explain the low uptake
of training.
Some research
participants described that it helped them cope better when thinking of giving
up their job and promoted resilience, with one person commenting: “(PFA) has
helped me cope better, it was a position I was thinking of giving up at one
time and now I have the strength to carry on.”
Others
described how it helped support them in their experiences of bereavement to
overcome the trauma of the pandemic: “I found it (PFA) useful as it helped me
cope with bereavement as well as the experience of seeing relatives affected by
COVID-19.” Another participant went as far as to say that PFA training “should
be made compulsory for all staff especially in nursing and care homes during
the pandemic or not.”
Dr Mariyana Schoultz, the project lead and Associate
Professor in Mental Health in Northumbria’s Department of
Nursing, Midwifery and Health,
said: “Findings suggest that PFA training has the potential to: strengthen
resilience for staff in health and social care; promote anti-stigma messages
and normalise help seeking behaviour; PFA holds the potential to minimise the
risk of developing more serious psychological problems such as Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD). But we need more research in this area.
“We
therefore recommend that consideration be given to funding an integrated
programme of research and development to further develop, implement, and
evaluate a co-produced iteration of PFA for use in the UK care home sector and
beyond.”
Deepa Korea, Director of the RCN
Foundation, said “Staff working in social care during the pandemic faced
significant pressures which inevitably had an impact on their own mental health
and emotional wellbeing. That’s why I am delighted that the RCN Foundation was
able to commission this important study which adds to the body of evidence
about the practical ways in which we can support health and social care staff.”
The study, ‘Uptake
and Effects of Psychological First Aid Training For Healthcare Workers’
Wellbeing in Nursing Homes: A UK National Survey’ has been published in scientific
journal
PLOS One.
