The purpose of this two-arm, parallel group individual randomized controlled trial is to evaluate the effectiveness of a character-strengths based coaching intervention consisting of a five-day residential workshop focusing on the use of character-strengths to address work-stress in routine situations supplemented by 8- to 10-week remote telephonic weekly coaching sessions to support rural health workers, as they face stressful situations and apply the strategies learnt in the workshop. The arms are: the character-strengths based intervention added to routine health worker supervision (weekly, by the supervisor) and routine supervision alone (control arm). The target sample comprises 330 government contracted 'ASHAs' (rural resident women, lay health workers) in the Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh, one of the most populous and poorest of the states in India. Scores on the 'Authentic Happiness Inventory (AHI)' will serve as the primary outcome for self-reported wellbeing and will be compared between arms at 3-month follow-up. Secondary ASHA-level outcomes will include assessment of self-reported affect, self-efficacy, flourishing, burnout, and motivation. We will also collect exploratory outcomes, including routine service delivery indicators to assess any effect of changes in well-being on ASHA's regular work performance, and resulting patient-level outcomes like satisfaction with services, and depression severity levels after receiving community-based depression care delivered by the ASHAs. We will also evaluate the costs of delivering the intervention and those incurred by ASHAs due to their participation in the intervention. Assessors blind to participant allocation will collect outcomes at baseline, 1-month and 3-month follow-up, as well as at 6-month follow-up, to ascertain differences in outcomes between arms. In addition, scores of ASHAs' self-perceived character strengths will be collected at baseline and 3-month follow-up as exploratory variables.
Character strengths-based interventions are found to be effective in improving well-being and reducing burnout amongst healthcare workers. But there is scarce knowledge on the use of structured positive psychology interventions for reduced work-stress and improving mental wellbeing of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs). ASHAs are village level community lay health care workers who provide the bulk of the health care services in rural India. ASHAs are overworked and underpaid and subjected to considerable stress for both professional and domestic reasons (being married, rural, traditional women). This study will test the effectiveness of a 'character-strengths' based coaching intervention on ASHAs' self-reported wellbeing. This study will evaluate the effectiveness of the aforementioned coaching intervention compared with routine supervision (delivered by one ASHA supervisor, weekly, face-to-face, typically in groups of \~20 ASHAs) on self-reported wellbeing score at 3-month follow-up. In this trial, a total of 330 ASHAs will be recruited in Sehore District of Madhya Pradesh, a large and predominantly rural state situated in central India. The development of the coaching intervention (published elsewhere, Khan A et al., 2023) involved: (1) formative work, (2) blueprint development, (3) content development, (4) content-testing, and focus groups discussions to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention, specifically the coaching workshop. This was followed by thematic qualitative analysis of ASHA perspectives/feedback to inform further modifications to the workshop. Intervention development occurred over 11 months, and the final coaching material consisted of a 'content manual' (for ASHAs) with four modules including character-strengths based 'strategies' to address challenges/stressors arising at health facilities, village communities and homes. Coaching material also included a workshop 'facilitator's manual' having session-wise detailed instructions, a list of 'energizers' and plans for the coaching workshop; and a protocol for remote telephonic coaching support to provide follow-on weekly support to ASHAs (typically 30-45 minute phone-calls) as they resume work (and experience stressors) and reinforce the learnings of the workshop. This trial will determine whether character-strengths based coaching is an effective and scalable approach for reducing work-stress and improving mental wellbeing of rural ASHAs in low-resource settings. The findings from this trial will inform broader efforts to develop similar stress-reduction interventions, which are necessary for related cadres (e.g., nurse midwives, rural doctors) in low-resource settings in India and other low- and middle-income countries.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
SINGLE
Enrollment
330
Residential (five day) workshop and remote (weekly) telephonic support for 8 to 10 weeks
Weekly face-to-face supervision by supervisor in groups of \~20 (1 supervisor for \~20 health workers)
Sangath Bhopal Hub
Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
RECRUITINGMean score on the Authentic Happiness Inventory (AHI)
Authentic Happiness Inventory (AHI) is a subjective measure for the assessment of happiness. We have used the term 'wellbeing' in the protocol to represent this specific measure of happiness. AHI includes 24 sets of five statements \[e.g., ranging from 1 ("I feel like a failure") to 5 ("I feel I am extraordinarily successful")\] from which, the respondent chooses the statement that best describes her feelings in the past one week. AHI has been designed for monitoring upward changes in happiness and has often been used in positive psychology intervention studies. Internal consistency at pre-test has been reported to be high (Cronbach's α = 0.94). AHI will be administered at baseline, and at 3 and 6 months thereafter. The primary outcome analysis will involve a comparison of mean AHI scores between arms at 3-month follow-up.
Time frame: Baseline, 3-month and 6-month follow-up
Mean score on the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS)
The 10-item international Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) Short Form (I-PANAS-SF) will be used to assess ASHA affect due to its acceptable psychometric properties such as cross-cultural stability and factorial invariance. ASHA's affect will be assessed as a mediating variable to examine its potential role in affecting wellbeing (AHI score).
Time frame: Baseline, 1-month and 3-month follow-up
Mean score on Flourish Index (FI) and Secure Flourish Index (SFI)
The "Flourish" index (FI) consists of two questions from each of the following domains: happiness and life satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships. Each question is assessed on a scale of 0 - 10. FI score is obtained by adding the scores from each of these ten questions (total: 0-100). The "Secure Flourish" index (SFI) is similar to the FI, except for two additional questions on financial and material stability, which may indicate the capacity to sustain flourishing across the aforesaid domains. The FI and SFI scores are reported as averages of the questions (rather than sums), therefore all scores are scaled from 0-10. Studies have put forth Cronbach's α = 0.89 for FI and Cronbach's α = 0.86 for SFI. FI and SFI will be assessed as mediating variables for their potential effects on wellbeing.
Time frame: Baseline, 1-month and 3-month follow-up
Mean score on Occupational Self-Efficacy Scale (OSES)
We are using the Occupational Self Efficacy Scale (OSES) given that its psychometric properties have been analyzed in the Indian context, and to that extent, we will adapt the scale among ASHAs for making any linguistic modifications. Self-efficacy will also be assessed as a mediating variable for its potential effect on wellbeing.
Time frame: Baseline, 1-month and 3-month follow-up
Mean score on the Emotional exhaustion sub-scale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Service Survey (MBI-HSS)
This tool is designed to measure burnout in professionals working in the human services. The overall questionnaire measures three burnout components: emotional exhaustion (8 items, Cronbach's α = 0.89), depersonalization (5 items, Cronbach's α = 0.69) and reduced personal accomplishment (7 items, Cronbach's α = 0.79). Emotional exhaustion is seen as the core component of this tool. Items are scored on a seven-point Likert's style scale. We will assess burnout as an extrinsic outcome variable i.e., potentially affected by the aforementioned mediator variables.
Time frame: Baseline, 3-month and 6-month follow-up
Mean score on the motivation scale for Indian frontline workers
We are using the tool pretested by Tripathy et al for Indian frontline health workers (including ASHAs, Auxiliary Nurse Midwives and Aanganwadi Workers) adapted from a motivation construct developed by Mbindyo et al, which was adapted from Bennet et al. Like burnout, we will assess motivation as an extrinsic outcome variable.
Time frame: Baseline, 3-month and 6-month follow-up
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