A Web-Based Well-being Program for Health Care Workers (Thrive): Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Mental health has come to be understood as not merely the absence of mental illness but also the presence of mental well-being, and recent interventions have sought to increase well-being in various populations. A population that deserves particular attention is that of health care workers, whose occupations entail high levels of stress, especially given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. A neuroscience-based web-based well-being program for health care workers-the Thrive program-has been newly developed to promote habits and activities that contribute to brain health and overall mental well-being. Objective: This paper describes the protocol for a randomized controlled trial whose objective is to evaluate the Thrive program in comparison with an active control condition to measure whether the program is effective at increasing well-being and decreasing symptoms of psychological distress in health care workers at a designated Australian hospital. Methods: The trial will comprise two groups (intervention vs active control) and 4 measurement occasions over a 12-week period. A survey will be administered in each of weeks 0, 4, 8, and 12, and the well-being program will be delivered in weeks 1-7 (via web-based video presentations or digital pamphlets). Each of the 4 surveys will comprise a range of questionnaires to measure well-being, psychological distress, and other key variables. The planned analyses will estimate group-by-time interaction effects to test the hypothesis that mental health will increase over time in the intervention condition relative to the active control condition. Results: The Thrive program was delivered to a small number of wards at the hospital between February 2021 and July 2021, and it will be delivered to the remaining wards from October 2021 to December 2021. A power calculation has recommended a sample size of at least 200 participants in total. A linear mixed model will be used to estimate the interaction effects. Conclusions: This trial seeks to evaluate a new web-based well-being program for health care workers at a major public hospital. It will contribute to the growing body of research on mental well-being and ways to promote it.