Evaluation of the effect of a digital intervention called Workplace Wellbeing Assist on mental health in the workplace for Residential Aged Care staff.

The intervention under study is a digital monitoring and decision support tool known as 'Workplace Wellbeing Assist' (WWA). The digital tool is designed to enhance the workplace culture and mental wellbeing of direct-care staff working in residential aged care (RAC) facilities. WWA will be trialled and evaluated with RAC facility staff within the Department of Health and Human Services Victoria, Australia, West Division. Materials: WWA will be available to participants to use via the internet on a mobile, tablet or computer. WWA does not diagnose or screen for mental health conditions. Procedures: Managers and direct-care staff will be invited to participate in the intervention trial by direct work email invitation. Manager participation is a requirement for direct-care staff participation at any one RAC facility. Direct-care staff participants will use WWA to complete a brief (approximately two-minute) Workplace Wellbeing Survey on a regular basis (recommended once a fortnight). The Workplace Wellbeing Survey will include 10 core questions, including four questions relating to personal wellbeing (e.g., how satisfied do they feel with their life) and six questions relating to workplace wellbeing (e.g., job control). Depending on the participant’s answers, the six workplace wellbeing questions may expand to (up to) 27 questions (e.g., I had little or no say over the way I do my job). These questions may take up to three minutes to complete depending on the number of questions. In response to the direct-care staff member's answers to the four personal wellbeing questions WWA will present direct-care staff, (in real time), with three tailored resources to assist their personal mental wellbeing from a selection of 20 available resources. The tailored resources will be displayed on their personal direct-care staff dashboard on WWA. All available resources will be available to the participant to browse at leisure from the ‘Resource Library’ located on their dashboard. The resources include two videos to support understanding of WWA, two resources explaining mental health, as well as 16 resources to enhance personal mental wellbeing. For example, the personal wellbeing resources include, Relaxation, Gratitude, Distress tolerance / Self-soothing, Self-compassion, Communication, and Strengths building. Resources are text-based with graphics and include links to external sites for further information (e.g., BeyondBlue). Accessing the resources is expected to take approximately 20 minutes (excluding accessing content on external sites). When a minimum of five direct-care staff have completed the six workplace wellbeing questions on the Workplace Wellbeing Survey in one fortnight cycle, data will be aggregated and be available on a manager dashboard on WWA to enable manager participants to monitor the workplace culture and take action to address workplace issues that may be affecting mental wellbeing. (Monitoring the manager dashboard is expected to take approximately five minutes each fortnight if issues have not been raised.) To assist managers to take action, WWA will present managers with tailored resources from a selection of six available workplace wellbeing resources that correlate with the six workplace domains displayed on the manager dashboard: Job Demands; Job Control; Management Support; Team Support; Recognition; and Culture and Safety. Manager workplace resources include text-based and graphics, six animated videos, as well as links to external sites (e.g. HeadsUp) to assist managers to create a mentally healthy workplace. Managers will also have access to two videos to assist understanding of WWA, as well as two resources explaining mental health. The expected time commitment for a manger to read one text-based resource and access a video would be approximately 25 minutes. Managers will have access to the workplace wellbeing resources and the personal wellbeing resources in the ‘Resource Library’ displayed on the manager dashboard. Managers will be able to use the personal wellbeing resources to enhance their own personal wellbeing if desired. However, managers will not be completing the Workplace Wellbeing Survey or be presented with personal wellbeing resources via WWA. Overall, accessing the resources, how often and how long, is up to the participant. Depending on the participant’s interest in mental wellbeing considerable time could be spent reviewing the resources including following up with links to external sites. The manager dashboard and direct-care staff dashboard are separate on WWA and neither has access to the other. Following direct-care staff first login to WWA, WWA will present direct-care staff with the Participant Information Sheet and Consent Form and following consent the direct-care staff participant will complete demographic information (at Week 0), and three sets of online questionnaires designed to measure changes in the workplace climate and staff mental wellbeing (at Week 0, Week 12, and Week 24). The questionnaires will take approximately 25 minutes to complete. Participating managers and direct-care staff will complete demographic information (Week 0) and a System Useability Scale two weeks into the trial. At Week 12 direct-care staff and manager participants will be invited to participate in a one-to-one, semi-structured interview (up to 60 minutes) via telephone, video-link or in-person (dependant on public health restrictions) to provide feedback on the acceptability, usability and usefulness of WWA. (Interview mode preference will be up to the individual participant, however, only telephone and video-link options will be available if public health restrictions do not permit in-person interviews.) Mode of delivery: WWA will be delivered using the internet on a mobile, tablet or computer. Potential participants (both manager and direct-care staff) will be provided with access to WWA via a link to WWA. The potential participant will then be able to login to WWA and create an account by providing a strong password. Frequency of use: It will be recommended that direct-care staff participants use WWA on a regular basis to monitor their mental wellbeing and complete the Workplace Wellbeing Survey, suggested fortnightly. Manager participants will be advised to monitor the manager dashboard on a regular basis, suggested fortnightly, to track the wellbeing of direct-care staff in the workplace. Manager and direct-care staff participants will be able to access resources on WWA as desired. WWA will be implemented in West Division RACS over a 24-week trial period. Collected WWA data will be analysed for how many times the participant logged in to WWA, the number of times the Workplace Wellbeing Survey was completed, the amount of time spent on the dashboard, which resources were accessed including videos, and how often they were accessed, and the amount of time spent using them. Data collected from the three waves of evaluation trial questionnaires will be analysed to assess the extent of any change in workplace climate and mental wellbeing over the trial period. All evaluation trial data will be de-identified prior to any analysis. Only aggregate data will be reported. Location: Participants will be able to access WWA over the internet in their workplace (RAC facility) or at home. Adherence: Regular use of WWA will be encouraged for direct-care staff and mangers to achieve maximum benefit in assisting to create a mentally healthy workplace climate. Push notifications and email reminders will be sent to direct-care staff when activity using WWA is noted as falling, that is if a direct- care staff member has not completed the Workplace Wellbeing Survey on WWA for over two weeks or more. Manager participants will be sent fortnightly reminders announcing that new data from the direct- care staff completion of the Workplace Wellbeing Survey is available for their review and action where required.