2 results
Feasibility of Implementing the STEADY Wellness Program to Support Hospital Staff During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Melissa Korman, Rosalie Steinberg, Mahiya Habib, Andrea Tuka, Catherine Martin-Doto, Kristen Winter, Ari Zaretsky, Steve Shadowitz, Claudia Cocco, Janet Ellis
-
- Journal:
- Prehospital and Disaster Medicine / Volume 38 / Issue S1 / May 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 13 July 2023, p. s115
- Print publication:
- May 2023
-
- Article
-
- You have access Access
- Export citation
-
Introduction:
The COVID-19 Pandemic negatively impacted the mental wellbeing of healthcare workers worldwide. Many organizations responded reactively to their staff needs. The novel, evidence-informed Social Support, Tracking Distress, Education and Discussion Community (STEADY) program was implemented, with senior leadership support across a large hospital. STEADY is a multi-pronged program developed to mitigate occupational stress injury in healthcare workers and first responders. This project examined the feasibility of implementing STEADY across hospital units during a pandemic.
Method:STEADY was implemented in five acute care units and across the rehab site of a large hospital. Data was collected on the five program components (drop-in peer support groups and critical incident debriefs, psychoeducation workshops, wellness assessments, peer partnering, community-building initiatives). Most peer support groups were facilitated by the program manager trained in peer support and one of six clinical staff.
Results:The program was iteratively adapted to meet the needs of target units/groups. More than 300 sessions were run in ~one year, for an average of ~1.15 sessions per unit per week. With flexible adaptation to the mode of facilitation, ~75% of planned workshops and ~85% of peer support sessions were run. Three critical incident stress debriefs were held. The formal partnering program was offered via e-mail with minimal uptake. Ninety-five wellness assessments were completed by target end-users, with 36 personalized responses sent. Gratitude trees were posted in each unit for community-building. Eight target unit staff completed formal peer support facilitation training. Twenty additional groups across the organization requested STEADY programming support and ten requested gratitude trees.
Conclusion:Results indicate that most components of the STEADY program were feasible to implement in hospital units during the pandemic. On-site, interactive programming was most engaging for end-users. Leadership support and flexible, continuous adaption by program leaders were identified as facilitators to program implementation and uptake.
Introduction: development policy, agency and Africa in the post-2015 development agenda
- Edited by George Kararach, Hany Besada, Timothy M. Shaw, University of Massachusetts Boston
-
- Book:
- Development in Africa
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 08 March 2022
- Print publication:
- 28 October 2015, pp 1-24
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Since 2000, Africa's economic expansion has proceeded with vigorous momentum, maintaining an annual average economic growth rate of 5 per cent or more (IMF, 2013). This robust economic growth is expected to extend beyond 2015, as the continent benefits from opportunities created by a natural resource boom, strong internal demand from its rapidly growing middle class, increased spending on basic infrastructure by both governments and the private sector, adoption and penetration of ICT (for example, mobile telephone penetration has surpassed 90 per cent in urban areas; see The World Bank, 2010), foreign direct and portfolio investments that are projected to reach a record US$80 billion (of which US$57 billion is foreign direct investment, FDI) by the end of 2014, doubling from 2005, and sizeable diaspora remittances, projected to reach US$67.1 billion in 2014 (AfDB, 2014a). However, in 2013, Africa faced major development challenges, some of which had far-reaching implications for the continent. These can be classified as relatively recent (those of yesterday): a rapidly changing demography (youth bulge, urbanisation, horizontal inequalities) and social risks (emerging and re-emerging diseases such as Ebola and Polio, crime, drugs, illicit trade); those of the immediate present (today): transforming agriculture (food security, exports) and global/regional integration (trade, finance, migration, human trafficking, infrastructure); and those of tomorrow: climate change pressures (water and energy insecurity, land shortages/grabs, drought, desertification, coastal populations (McMichael and Butler, 2004)) and technology (UNCTAD, 2012), as well as the business ‘model’ shocks (economic competition, job creation, and natural resource governance, beneficiation and its distribution).
Africa's economies have need of not only a new dynamism to respond to global competition, but also a strategy that will enhance transformation and socioeconomic achievement beyond the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly within the context of the post-2015 development framework, and which will include a wide range of development solutions around issues such food and energy security, and enhance service delivery and social inclusion. Africa must work on securing social and political stability and build effective economic governance. This must take the form of a concerted effort in order to enhance national and regional capacity for successful and sustainable development, creating a society that can deal with questions of agency and political economy for quality service delivery, social inclusion and democratic accountability.