Disaster Mental Health
Design and implementation of a novel Virtual Emotional Support Intervention: Caring for Healthcare Workers during COVID-19 Pandemic
Kathleen M. Grubbs, Ph.D.
Staff Psychologist
VA San Diego Healthcare System/University of California, San Diego
San Diego, California
Joshua Ruberg, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
VA San Diego Healthcare System
San Diego, California
Benjamin Felleman, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
VA San Diego Healthcare System
San Diego, California
Katharine Lacefield, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
VA San Diego Healthcare System/University of California, San Diego
San Diego, California
Pia Heppner, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
VA San Diego Healthcare System
San Diego, California
Abigail C. Angkaw, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
VA San Diego Healthcare System
San Diego, California
The SARS-CoV2 pandemic placed health care systems and providers under tremendous stress (Li, 2020). As a result, healthcare leadership was tasked with designing and implementing programing to support front-line medical staff. The Virtual Emotional Support for Teams (VEST), rolled out at the San Diego VA, was based on Stress First Aid (Watson & Westfall, 2020) and deployed by a core team of mental health leadership and staff who coordinated, trained, and provided oversight to a team of volunteer group leaders. Group leaders were recruited from mental health clinics throughout the hospital with the goal of implementing group-based support to decrease stress reactions among medical staff within a team context to decrease stress and increase staff morale. Group leaders did not keep detailed records of their group attendance for confidentiality reasons, however they completed retrospective surveys about their experiences with the program in order to give feedback and to identify lessons learned. The current program evaluation will provide descriptive information about the groups and discuss lessons learned during the implementation phase. Respondents included group leaders (N = 9) who described their experiences with 18 groups. A majority of the groups were offered to nursing clinics, with other groups focused on primary care, social work, and medical clinics. Most groups were considered to be “closed” because they were designed to meet the needs of a specific clinic. Groups averaged 3.5 meetings, with 1 as the modal number of meetings. Among groups with at least 1 participant, attendance ranged from approximately 1-20 with the average number of participants around 4. Content included elements of the Stress First Aid protocol, needs assessments, discussion of group morale, and mindfulness. Based on surveys from group leaders and the VEST work group, some valuable lessons emerged. Group leaders identified psychoeducation about stress, basic stress management tools (including guided imagery and mindfulness) and discussions of grief, loss, and institutional trust as observed strengths. Group leaders identified lack of support/communication from supervisors which may have lowered attendance, distraction during sessions due to technology or clinical responsibilities and an interest in discussing topics outside of the scope of the program as weaknesses. Suggestions for improving the groups included a preference for brevity (15-30 mins vs. 60 mins), increased leadership support for attendance, standardized needs assessments, ways to modify groups to respond to changes over time, and more effort to engage marginalized or minoritized staff members within the hospital. This program evaluation describes the lessons learned when implementing a hospital-wide emotional support intervention. The goal is to improve processes for staff support during times of crisis.