A resilience training web app for NHS keyworkers: a pilot usability study

Background: It is well established that frontline health care staff are particularly at risk of stress. Resilience is important to help staff to manage daily challenges and to protect against burnout.

Objective: This study aimed to assess the usability and user perceptions of a resilience training web app developed to support health care keyworkers in understanding their own stress response and to help them put into place strategies to manage stress and to build resilience.

Methods: Nurses (n=7) and other keyworkers (n=1), the target users for the resilience training web app, participated in the usability evaluation. Participants completed a pretraining questionnaire capturing basic demographic information and then used the training before completing a posttraining feedback questionnaire exploring the impact and usability of the web app.

Results: From a sample of 8 keyworkers, 6 (75%) rated their current role as “sometimes” stressful. All 8 (100%) keyworkers found the training easy to understand, and 5 of 7 (71%) agreed that the training increased their understanding of both stress and resilience. Further, 6 of 8 (75%) agreed that the resilience model had helped them to understand what resilience is. Many of the keyworkers (6/8, 75%) agreed that the content was relevant to them. Furthermore, 6 of 8 (75%) agreed that they were likely to act to develop their resilience following completion of the training.

Conclusions: This study tested the usability of a web app for resilience training specifically targeting National Health Service keyworkers. This work preceded a larger scale usability study, and it is hoped this study will help guide other studies to develop similar programs in clinical settings.