Digital Interventions for Detection and Reduction of Moral Distress (VR)

Could Digital Interventions Help Understand And "Flatten The Curve" Of Distress Due To Moral Injury Among Health Care Workers During The COVID Pandemic?

Stress, anxiety, distress and depression are exceptionally high among healthcare workers at the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic. Factors underlying distress and resilience are unknown and there are no evidence based interventions to impact the mental wellbeing of frontline healthcare workers. This study will evaluate a novel virtual reality platform to gather the "distress experience" of frontline healthcare workers at Unity Health Toronto in real time during the ongoing COVID pandemic by developing and showing feasibility of digital technology (Virtual Reality (VR) and mobile app) as a digital platform to understand the causes and ultimately reduce the moral distress of healthcare providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project will develop innovations which can be used for future pandemics and other contexts prone to producing moral distress and injury.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Distress, Emotional; Moral Injury
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Educational moral injury video

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 15
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Ontario
    • Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5B 1W8
      • St. Michael's Hospital

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Staff or healthcare providers working at Unity Health Toronto
• 18 years of age or older
• Must own a mobile phone running Android Version 6.0 and higher, or an iPhone 6 running OS 14 and higher)

Exclusion Criterion:

- Non-Unity Health Toronto staff

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Experimental Arm; VR simulation exercise with a digital follow-up component to help assess the physiological and psychological indicators of moral distress	Other: Educational moral injury video; Educational video that addresses the identification of moral injury and distress in frontline healthcare workers during COVID-19; offers available interventions at the levels of individual, team and organization

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Feasibility evaluation of the virtual reality environment	The primary outcome measure will be a comparison of MIOS (Moral Injury Outcome Scale) and PSS (Perceived Stress Scale) scores before and after watching an educational video on moral injury; feasibility of this platform will be assessed based on a feasibility questionnaire and changes in score.	60 minutes (during the intervention)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Feasibility evaluation of a mobile platform to understand the continuum of stress and moral distress.	Feasibility of the mobile platform will be measured based on dropout rate	Up to 8 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Unity Health Toronto
• Collaborators: McMaster University; University of Toronto; Ryerson University; University of Ontario Institute of Technology
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Venkat Bhat, MD MSc, Unity Health Toronto

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Nguyen B, Torres A, Sim W, Kenny D, Campbell DM, Beavers L, Lou W, Kapralos B, Peter E, Dubrowski A, Krishnan S, Bhat V. Digital Interventions to Reduce Distress Among Health Care Providers at the Frontline: Protocol for a Feasibility Trial. JMIR Res Protoc. 2022 Feb 16;11(2):e32240. doi: 10.2196/32240.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): May 31, 2021
• Primary Completion (Actual): August 30, 2021
• Study Completion (Actual): August 30, 2021

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 28, 2021
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 5, 2021
• First Posted (Actual): August 12, 2021

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): October 7, 2021
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 5, 2021
• Last Verified: October 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Depression; Anxiety; Stress; Loneliness; Moral Injury; Moral Distress
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Trauma and Stressor Related Disorders; Stress Disorders, Traumatic; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
• Other Study ID Numbers: 21-066; CPCA-0592 (Other Grant/Funding Number: DND Canada: IDEaS Competitive Projects)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

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