Supporting the Wellness of Ontario Physicians During COVID-19

In light of the coronavirus pandemic, the challenge of physician burnout has taken on a new urgency. Long-hours and difficult, sometimes unsafe work conditions are creating a severe strain for emergency physicians and others on the frontlines of Ontario's response to COVID-19. There are a variety of evidence-informed ways that physicians can protect their wellbeing with modest investments of time and energy that will be applied. The evaluation will be a randomized trial comparing the outcomes from each of the three treatment arms. Researchers may also use a pre-post comparison with control parameters to conduct an exploratory analysis to assess efficacy.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Anxiety; Mental Health Wellness 1; Happiness
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Remote SMS (short message service, also known as "text message") delivery

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 19124
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Ontario
    • Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 3C1
      • Ontario Medical Association

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Active membership to the Ontario Medical Association (OMA). Up-to-date cell phone information registered to the OMA.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Participation in the OMA Physician Burnout Task Force. Opt-out from the intervention.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Double

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Receive weekly SMS containing wellness stories shared by other Ontario physicians	Other: Remote SMS (short message service, also known as "text message") delivery; Assessing the comparative effects of SMS types (storytelling; resources/strategies; and a combination of both) on physician wellbeing.
Experimental: Receive weekly SMS containing aim wellness resources/strategies.	Other: Remote SMS (short message service, also known as "text message") delivery; Assessing the comparative effects of SMS types (storytelling; resources/strategies; and a combination of both) on physician wellbeing.
Experimental: Receive weekly SMS combining wellness stories & resources/strategies	Other: Remote SMS (short message service, also known as "text message") delivery; Assessing the comparative effects of SMS types (storytelling; resources/strategies; and a combination of both) on physician wellbeing.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Wellbeing (Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale measure)	Self-reported wellbeing scores, as measured by the short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale--(S)WEMWBS. The (S)WEMWBS is designed to measure positive mental wellbeing and asks people to what extent they agree with statements such as "I've been feeling optimistic about the future", "I've been feeling relaxed", and "I've been feeling close to people". This scale has a range of 7 to 35; higher scores indicate higher positive mental wellbeing.	6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Happiness (UK ONS measure)	Self-reported happiness scores, as measured through weekly pulse surveys using a question developed by the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) - hereby referred to as ONS-happiness ("on a scale where 0 is "not at all" and 10 is "completely", overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?"). This scale has a range from 0 to 10, with higher scores indicating greater happiness.	6 months
Anxiety (UK ONS measure)	Self-reported anxiety scores, as measured through pulse surveys using an ONS question, hereby referred to as ONS-anxiety ("on a scale where 0 is "not at all" and 10 is "completely", overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?"). This scale has a range from 0 to 10, with higher scores indicating greater anxiety.	6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Ontario Medical Association
• Collaborators: The Behavioural Insights Team
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: James Wright, Ontario Medical Association

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): January 26, 2021
• Primary Completion (Actual): September 2, 2021
• Study Completion (Actual): September 2, 2021

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 8, 2021
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 16, 2021
• First Posted (Actual): March 18, 2021

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): November 30, 2021
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 29, 2021
• Last Verified: November 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: 39707

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No