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Building resilience at work: nurses join study on coping with stressful events

Critical care staff will learn strategies and skills to help them after COVID-19 pressures
Illustration of figure representing a nurse holding a row of posts that seem to be toppling

Critical care staff will learn strategies and skills to help them as COVID-19 recovery continues across the health service

Illustration of figure representing a nurse holding a row of posts that seem to be toppling
Picture: iStock

A group of 80 nurses will take part in a year-long study aimed at building resilience and helping them cope in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The nurses – all members of the West Yorkshire Critical Care Network, which spans six NHS trusts – will take part in workshops where they learn practical, cognitive behavioural strategies, and have follow-up coaching calls with a psychological therapist.

Participants will learn practical, cognitive behavioural strategies

The study, which looks at how to help nurses in highly stressful environments such as critical care cope with traumatic situations, is being conducted by Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Led by the trust’s assistant chief nurse for quality and safety research, Angela Grange, it will evaluate a tailored coaching intervention called RE-BOOT, or REcovery-BOOsting Training.

Dr Grange said: ‘RE-BOOT has been tested as a face-to face, psychological intervention, but this new research will see if it can be translated into an online format for nurses.

‘We hope it will enhance nurses’ confidence in coping with adverse events and boost their knowledge about resilience techniques and coping strategies.’

Researchers hope to share their findings across the NHS

After completing the workshops and coaching calls, the nurses will undergo an assessment of their well-being, including confidence and resilience.

It is hoped findings from the study, which is funded by an £82,000 grant from the Burdett Trust for Nursing, can be shared across the NHS to enable wider use of the programme.

Burdett Trust chief executive Shirley Baines said: ‘This is one of 19 nurse-led projects across the UK we have funded looking at ways to strengthen resilience in the nursing workforce during the pandemic. RE-BOOT attracted our interest because it supports nurses working in highly stressful clinical environments and because of the potential for results to be adopted in other healthcare settings.’


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