Compassion Project: Developing an Empathy-Based Stress Intervention

NCT06343818 | Not Yet Recruiting DMC

• 1 other identifier: NIHR301578
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 100
• Locations: 0 countries
• Sites: N/A

Brief Summary

Compassion is recognising that someone is suffering and wanting to help them. Compassion fatigue is a reduction in capacity to feel compassion for others. Secondary trauma is the experience of traumatic responses to hearing about someone else's trauma. Burnout is depersonalisation, emotional exhaustion, and feeling less good at one's job. Compassion fatigue, secondary trauma and burnout can all be referred to as empathy-based stress. This is a problem for healthcare staff and their patients. Staff experiencing empathy-based stress deliver less high quality care, which can lead to serious consequences for patients. Empathy-based stress is also associated with staff sickness, which is bad for staff and costly to the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS). Child and adolescent mental health (CAMHS) wards are busy, high-pressure environments where families and young people are often upset, resources are stretched, and staff are managing high levels of patient risk of self-harm or suicide. The principal investigator has already reviewed research on empathy-based stress and interventions to prevent and/or reduce it in mental health ward staff. This evidence has been presented to CAMHS ward staff, managers, commissioners, patients and families and these stakeholders have co-designed an intervention for wards, to reduce empathy-based stress. The intervention aims to help staff to feel better and care better. This pilot study aims to test and improve our intervention on two CAMHS wards, measuring how useful and well-liked it is, and how feasible it would be to use it and to test it on more wards. Staff on CAMHS wards will be offered a modular intervention including psychoeducation about empathy based stress and ways of combatting it, and workplace stressor and management toolkits. NHS CAMHS ward staff and patients will be asked to complete questionnaires and a subsample of staff will be asked to complete interviews about the process of the intervention.

Conditions

Reduction of Empathy-Based Stress in Healthcare Staff

Keywords

Compassion Fatigue; Burnout; Secondary Trauma; Empathy-Based Stress; Staff wellbeing; Patient care

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (5)

• Acceptability of intervention

  Acceptability of Intervention Measure (AIM), with a minimum score of 1 and a maximum score of 15, with higher scores indicating greater acceptability.

  Month 3 and Month 6

• Feasibility of intervention

  Feasibility of Intervention Measure (FIM), with a minimum score of 1 and a maximum score of 20, with higher scores indicating greater perceived feasibility.

  Month 3 and Month 6

• Perceived usefulness of intervention

  Two perceived usefulness questions rated on a 5 point Likert scale where 1 is not useful and 5 is extremely useful

  Month 3 and Month 6

• Feasibility of Study

  Red/Amber/Green analysis of ward recruitment

  Conducted in month 6

• Feasibility of gathering data on staff empathy-based stress using the Professional Quality of Life Scale at multiple timepoints

  Professional Quality of Life Scale (PROQUOL). Raw scores between 10 and 50 are presented for three subscales (1) Compassion Satisfaction, (2) Burnout and (3) Secondary Traumatic Stress. Higher scores on compassion satisfaction are positive, and higher scores on burnout or secondary traumatic stress relate to a poorer outcome.

  Month -1, 0, 3 and 6

Secondary Outcomes (4)

• Feasibility of assessing health economics data using a Health-related Quality of Life questionnaire

  Month -1, 0, 3 and 6

• Process measures to assess potential mechanisms of change

  Month -1, 0, 3 and 6

• Feasibility of gathering young person and parent/carer data on compassionate care

  Given at discharge throughout the 6 months of the intervention

• Feasibility of gathering young person and parent/carer data on experience of service

  Given at discharge throughout the 6 months of the intervention

Other Outcomes (1)

• Ward-level contextual factors

  Month -1, 0, 3 and 6

Study Arms (2)

Pilot Ward Site 1

EXPERIMENTAL

First ward site will pilot the intervention which will then be refined before delivery at second ward site

Other: The Compassion Project: Intervention to Reduce Empathy-Based Stress in Staff

Pilot Ward Site 2

EXPERIMENTAL

Second ward will pilot refined intervention

Other: The Compassion Project: Intervention to Reduce Empathy-Based Stress in Staff

Interventions

The Compassion Project: Intervention to Reduce Empathy-Based Stress in Staff OTHER

Six month package of training and resources delivered to ward staff, including bite-sized audio, video and written materials. Face to face training will be provided weekly by a clinical psychologist. A staff group of 'compassion champions' will be responsible for embedding the intervention.

Pilot Ward Site 1; Pilot Ward Site 2

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 13 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17), Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Staff working on the 2 adolescent mental health ward sites at this time. All young people and parents/carers who are discharged during the time period of the intervention.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Bath: lead
• National Institute for Health Research, United Kingdom: collaborator
• Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust: collaborator
• Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust: collaborator

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Compassion Fatigue; Burnout, Psychological

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Mental Fatigue; Fatigue; Signs and Symptoms; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms; Behavioral Symptoms; Behavior; Occupational Stress; Stress, Psychological

Study Officials

• Lucy Maddox, DClinPsy

  University of Bath

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Central Study Contacts

Lucy Maddox, DClinPsy

CONTACT

01225 388388; lm2436@bath.ac.uk

Paul Chadwick, DClinPsy

CONTACT

pdjc20@bath.ac.uk

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NON RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: TREATMENT
• Intervention Model: SEQUENTIAL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Principal Investigator

Model Details: The study uses a repeated AB design on two ward sites to assess feasibility, acceptability and usefulness of a novel intervention for empathy-based stress in staff, and to test feasibility of this study design. It is not assessing efficacy. The extended baseline measure is the control, there is no control group

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: March 15, 2024
• First Posted: April 3, 2024
• Study Start: August 1, 2024
• Primary Completion (Estimated): August 1, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): August 31, 2027
• Last Updated: April 3, 2024

Record last verified: 2024-03

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share