The aim of this project was to find out whether Schwartz Rounds can help improve the social and emotional well-being of social care staff in England.
Overview
Working in social care can be immensely rewarding – but it can also be stressful and emotionally challenging. Schwartz Rounds are an intervention widely used in healthcare settings in the UK to help staff manage the social and emotional demands of their work. Schwartz Rounds had never been used in children’s services in England before this study. Working with twelve local authorities, we ran a randomised controlled trial to find out whether Schwartz Rounds could improve the psychological wellbeing of social care staff and reduce sickness-related absence.
Activities and Methods
More than 5,000 members of staff were individually randomised to either an intervention group, invited to attend Schwartz Rounds, or a control group, asked not to attend during the trial period. We measured psychological distress using the GHQ-12, a widely used and validated questionnaire, before the first Round and again after the final Round in each authority, and asked staff to self-report sickness-related absence. We also collected feedback forms after each Round, carried out interviews and focus groups with staff, observed Rounds in every participating authority, and gathered economic data on the cost of delivery. The trial ran in two phases: six local authorities delivered Rounds in person from 2019, and a further six joined in 2020 to expand the sample. The Covid-19 pandemic paused the second phase for several months and meant Rounds there were delivered virtually rather than in person.
Findings
Staff feedback was strongly positive: the large majority rated their experience as good, excellent or exceptional, and most said they intended to attend again and would recommend Rounds to colleagues. At follow-up, staff who had been invited to attend Rounds had lower average GHQ-12 scores, and fewer had scores indicating elevated psychological distress, compared with the control group. Staff who attended regularly also had somewhat better scores and fewer sickness-related absences than those who attended irregularly or not at all. However, none of these differences reached statistical significance, so we cannot be confident they were due to Schwartz Rounds rather than chance. Delivering Rounds was feasible, including virtually, although most staff preferred in-person sessions, and the cost of running them was relatively low. Considered together, the findings offer clear signs of promise for the use of Schwartz Rounds in children’s services, particularly for staff who attend regularly, without providing definitive proof of effect.
Read more
The full report is available below:
Lead Person
| Principal Investigator | David Wilkins |
Academic Staff
| Researcher | Sarah Thompson |
| Researcher | Zoe Bezeczky |
Related Information
| Related Schools | Cardiff University School of Social Sciences |
| Related partners | Point of Care Foundation |
| Funders | What Work’s for Children’s Social Care |
| Related documents | Research Protocol |