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Building resilience in Health and Social Care students entering the workforce using digital networks to support their mental health and wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic

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Project Description

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic professional regulators are facilitating the inclusion of health and social care students in the workforce prior to satisfying previously essential criteria pre-registration and as new graduates. Around 1000 Robert Gordon University students will experience an environment where extreme pressure on workloads and blurring of traditional role boundaries will impact on the support they receive and expectations of them in the workplace. We urgently need to establish the immediate, short- and longer-term implications on the resilience and wellbeing of the student population over an initial six-month period.

Our portfolio is conceptualised on 1) the dynamic nature of health and social care systems during the pandemic 2) the socio-ecological influences on health and wellbeing and 3) a mixed methods evaluation of two complementary interventions. Health, Social Science and Computing researchers at RGU have joined forces to develop and use digital networks to 1) gather personalised and tailor information about the resilience and mental wellbeing of participants; 2) provide facilitated peer focus group discussions to establish participants’ lived experiences and 3) evaluate studies one and two and the context.
Development of an ‘App’ in study one will identify trends in responses, online resources accessed and natural language processing of digital diaries. Building on study one, study two will offer online focus group discussions to establish participants’ lived experiences and sharing of useful resources. Study three will evaluate data from studies one and two and the context and impact of COVID-19 on the health care system.

Our portfolio seeks to identify the impact on participants working in dynamic social systems which are subject to an unpredictable disease pandemic alongside changes to government public policy and legislative frameworks. Our findings will provide a robust foundation to build interventions to support health and social professionals’ health experience, coping and resilience.

Project Acronym Digitally supported networks to build resilience in Health and social care practitioners during the Covid 19 pandemic
Status Project Complete
Funder(s) Chief Scientist Office (NHS Scotland)
Value £55,788.00
Project Dates May 1, 2020 - Nov 30, 2020

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