(121) Impact of Peer Support Training on Communication and Quality of Life for Surgical ICU Practitioners

Introduction: The experience of an adverse clinical outcome or patient safety event can lead to long-term exhaustion and chronic stress resulting in burnout. Additionally, high intensity interactions in critically ill patients can lead to barriers in communication. Employing an established peer support program and completing a coaching training course may help with the emotional impact of critical care. This education and training is not regularly included in the baseline curriculum for healthcare professionals. The goals of the study were twofold: evaluate professional quality of life, burnout, and communication pre- and post-implementation of a peer support program and to measure the utilization of a program in a tertiary care academic intensive care unit.

Methods: Seventeen Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) clinicians, including physicians, advanced practice providers, registered nurses, and certified nursing assistants, completed a two-hour virtual peer support and coaching training course prior to study initiation. Pre-implementation surveys regarding professional quality of life (ProQOL) and communication were delivered via REDCap to all SICU clinicians representing the disciplines above. Advertisement of the program was multifaceted and utilization was tracked by study leadership. Six- and twelve-month post-implementation surveys assessed clinician experience and sustainability of the program.

Results: Out of 118 eligible participants, 64 completed the initial survey. At 6- and 12-month follow-up, 18 and 14 of the original participants completed the survey respectively. Recognizing the limitations due to attrition, when analyzed as continuous variables, secondary traumatic stress (STS) significantly decreased from a mean score of 26 at baseline to 21.5 at 12-months, with lower scores indicating less STS, P < 0.05. Over the 12 months of the program, peer support occurred 147 times. Consistent with prior presentations, most peer support was unofficial or casual.

Conclusions: This implementation of a peer support and coaching program is feasible, cost effective, and may result in improved teamwork and quality of life. A larger multi-unit or multi-center trial may be considered to expand on this work and corroborate the statistically significant reduction in STS seen in our study.