Trial reportEpidemiology and psychiatric sciences2024
Effectiveness of a WHO self-help psychological intervention to alleviate stress among healthcare workers in the context of COVID-19 in China: a randomised controlled trial.
Trial report in Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 4 citations in OpenAlex.
- A digital adaptation of the WHO's Self-Help Plus psychological intervention to alleviate stress among community health workers: a mixed-methods evaluation of the SAMBHAV program in rural India.Health policy and planning · 2026Article
- Effectiveness of barber-facilitated "Doing What Matters in Times of Stress" intervention among urban literate youths in Western Kenya: A cluster randomised trial.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- A guide to selecting psychological interventions that can be delivered by people who are not mental health specialists in low-resource settings.PLOS global public health · 2025Review
- Mapping the needs of healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients using the socio-ecological framework: a rapid scoping review.Human resources for health · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
18 authors at 8 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimsTo examine the effectiveness of Self-Help Plus (SH+) as an intervention for alleviating stress levels and mental health problems among healthcare workers.
methodsThis was a prospective, two-arm, unblinded, parallel-designed randomised controlled trial. Participants were recruited at all levels of medical facilities within all municipal districts of Guangzhou. Eligible participants were adult healthcare workers experiencing psychological stress (10-item Perceived Stress Scale scores of ≥15) but without serious mental health problems or active suicidal ideation. A self-help psychological intervention developed by the World Health Organization in alleviating psychological stress and preventing the development of mental health problems. The primary outcome was psychological stress, assessed at the 3-month follow-up. Secondary outcomes were depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, insomnia, positive affect (PA) and self-kindness assessed at the 3-month follow-up.
resultsBetween November 2021 and April 2022, 270 participants were enrolled and randomly assigned to either SH+ (
conclusionsThis is the first known randomised controlled trial ever conducted to improve stress and mental health problems among healthcare workers experiencing psychological stress in a low-resource setting. SH+ was found to be an effective strategy for alleviating psychological stress and reducing symptoms of common mental problems. SH+ has the potential to be scaled-up as a public health strategy to reduce the burden of mental health problems in healthcare workers exposed to high levels of stress.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.