Investigation of the Effect of Virtual Stress Management Training on the General Health of Pre-hospital Emergency Personnel: A Semi-experimental Study during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background and Objective: It is necessary to carry out urgent interventions to improve the general health of pre-hospital emergency personnel. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of virtual stress management training on the general health of pre-hospital emergency personnel. Materials and Methods: In this semi-experimental study conducted in 2022 in Jiroft City, Iran, 160 pre-hospital emergency personnel were randomly selected and divided into two intervention and control groups by simple random allocation (lottery). The educational content of stress management was held for eight sessions of 45 minutes (two sessions per week) for the intervention group virtually and online via the Adobe Connect application. The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) was completed in two stages, before the intervention and one month after the completion of the intervention, in both groups. Using SPSS software (version 20), descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (ANCOVA) were used for data analysis. Results: The post-test results indicated a significant difference between the two groups in the overall score of general health (46.13±15.10 in the control group versus 34.50±12.63 in the intervention group). Moreover, after the intervention, the overall score of general health and its subscales decreased significantly only in the intervention group (P<0.001). Conclusion: The implementation of the stress management virtual training program helps to improve the general health of pre-hospital emergency personnel. Therefore, it is recommended to be used as an effective method for empowering human resources.

Keywords

• covid-19
• emergency medical services
• education
• general health
• pre-hospital emergency