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International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare

PH 2021: Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare pp 147–163Cite as

“We’re Not Meant to Deal with Crisis for a Year”: Supporting Frontline Healthcare Providers’ Wellness During a Pandemic

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Abstract

The newly discovered respiratory disease, COVID-19, has caused significant physical and psychological strain for frontline healthcare providers (HCPs). Researchers have found higher levels of anxiety, stress, depression, and poor sleep quality in HCPs during this time. It is crucial to ensure the well-being of HCPs to secure a functioning health system amid a pandemic. This work explores how HCPs might interact with a Just-in-Time Adaptive Intervention (JITAI) system that collects their biopsychosocial metrics using off-the-shelf fitness trackers and ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) for providing actionable interventions in real-time. We found that different healthcare-related life factors influenced our participant HCPs’ engagement with the technological tools in the study. HCPs also expressed the need for better tools to help them convey their emotional exhaustion from a year-long pandemic. We also observed that HCPs sometimes could not maintain their psychological well-being due to other external factors, especially workload. These findings point to important design requirements for JITAIs to support frontline providers’ psychological well-being, both within healthcare and beyond.

A. Flis and M. Mickens—Both authors had equal contribution.

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Acknowledgment

This research was supported by an award from the Immunology, Inflammation and Infectious Diseases Initiative and the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Utah. The authors would like to acknowledge Heidi Hansen and Alyssa Louise Duenes for their support in coordinating with different stakeholders of this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA

    Kazi Sinthia Kabir & Jason Wiese

  2. Division of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA

    Alexandra Flis

  3. Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

    Melody Mickens

  4. Salt Lake City Veterans Affairs Medical Center, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA

    Stephen K. Trapp

Authors
  1. Kazi Sinthia Kabir
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  2. Alexandra Flis
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  3. Melody Mickens
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  4. Stephen K. Trapp
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  5. Jason Wiese
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kazi Sinthia Kabir .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Holon Institute of Technology, Holon, Israel

    Hadas Lewy

  2. Holon Institute of Technology, Holon, Israel

    Refael Barkan

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Kabir, K.S., Flis, A., Mickens, M., Trapp, S.K., Wiese, J. (2022). “We’re Not Meant to Deal with Crisis for a Year”: Supporting Frontline Healthcare Providers’ Wellness During a Pandemic. In: Lewy, H., Barkan, R. (eds) Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare. PH 2021. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 431. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99194-4_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99194-4_11

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-99194-4

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