Award Title: Co-designing an e-resource to support the resilience of care staff
Funder: Public Health Agency, NI

Abstract: The aim of this project is to explore how
nurses in care homes developed resilience
during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and
to codesign a digital resource to build future
coping and adaptation strategies fostering
increasing resilience. We will achieve this
through the following objectives:
1. To identify the resilience profile of nurses in
care homes following their exposure to the
COVID-19 pandemic
2. To codesign an online resource for use by
nursing staff in care homes to develop
capacity to recover and adapt from adverse
situations.3. To deliver and evaluate the online resource
in how it promotes resilience of nursing staff in
care homes
This project is a mixed methods exploratory
sequential design1. The project team will
undertake a rapid review of the literature2 on
interventions that build resilience in nurses to
inform the three phases of the study. We also
recognise the impact of traumatic events in
care homes during the pandemic outbreak and
will integrate trauma informed care principles
across the three phases of study.
Phase 1 will deliver a quantitative survey to
440 care homes across Northern Ireland.
Nursing staff will be invited to anonymously
complete a demographic questionnaire
followed by two validated scales: Resilience
Scale RS-253 and Resilience skills in nursing
practice4. The findings will contribute to the
development of a digital resource to enhance
resilience in nurses working in care homes.
These questionnaires will be administered via
email and sample regional nurse managers,
managers, clinical leads and nurses who
practice in care home settings. We will work in
partnership with the Public Health Agency (NI)
to distribute the questionnaires aiming for
150-200 survey responses.
Phase 2 will co-design an online resource
involving the project team, nurses/nurse
managers working in care homes, two
practitioners working with mindfulness and
yoga therapies and Morrow Communications.
An online resource was chosen due to
emerging evidence that self-guided internet
interventions with multiple sessions might
prevent PTSD symptoms in adults following a
traumatic event6. As the purpose of the
resource is to provide support to nurses
working in care homes to cope and adapt in
challenging situations over time thus building
their resilience, the principles of trauma
informed care will be presented as part of the
codesign process. To develop the content of
this resource, the results of the rapid review of
the literature and the resilience questionnaires
from the nursing staff in care homes will be
used to support the identification of activities
best suited to this context. Although to be
developed through co-design, it is anticipated
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that the resource will cater for different types
of learners using the established VAK learning
framework from Neil Fleming5:
Visual: e.g 8-12 short videos covering different
issues such as avoiding a sedentary lifestyle,
how to look after wellbeing, parental mental
health, money worries, stress management.
This will include peer support by using nurses’
experience and how they coped.
Auditory: e.g 8-12 podcast interviews between
experts about aspects of resilience such as
sleep hygiene, importance of exercise, good
nutrition, art of motivation, benefits of
mindfulness etc.
Kinaesthetic: e.g activities such as
mindfulness and yoga (24 sessions over 6
months) and interactive self-help guides as
agreed by the codesign group.
Phase 3 will evaluate the online digital
resource using mixed methods: quantitative
data collected from the resource to measure
usage and engagement and individual
interviews of care home staff who have used
the resource to identify the personal benefits if
any from the resource. Semi structured
interviews with approx 10-12 participants
across NI will be held via video conferencing.
Quantitative data will be analysed using
descriptive statistics. Qualitative data will be
managed with NVivo software and analysed
using thematic analysis6.


Research Activity Codes: 8.1 ORGANISATION AND DELIVERY OF SERVICES
Health Categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE