A King’s College London research project which looks at how
upsetting workplace experiences can affect veterinary wellbeing, is currently
recruiting participants.
The study is funded by the RCVS Mind Matters Initiative through its £20,000 Sarah Brown Mental
Health Research grant and is led by psychologists Professor Neil Greenberg, Dr Dominic Murphy and Dr Victoria
Williamson.
The aim of the study is to
investigate the impact of “moral injury” on veterinary professions, including
the types of moral injuries veterinary professionals might encounter,
their prevalence, the perceptions amongst professionals around how these moral
injuries come about, and what support is needed when they occur. Morally
injurious events are defined as
experiences which violate one’s moral or ethical code.
An online questionnaire has
now been launched which is available for all members of the veterinary team who
may wish to provide evidence about morally injurious events and the impact they
have had to the study.
Dr Victoria Williamson said: “If you have experienced
an upsetting event in your veterinary role, it would be really helpful if you
could fill in our questionnaire which is anonymous and confidential. As part of
this study, we are particularly interested in hearing about experiences that
may have caused you to question the kind of person you are, or the kind of
world we live in. These are things that you feel you may have done or failed to
do, or things that others did or failed to do.
“We hope our results will help us to find
better ways of meeting the needs of veterinarians in future so we would
encourage veterinary professionals to also circulate this study to colleagues.
Some participants may be invited to take part in a follow-up telephone
interview; however, we would like to assure you this element of the project is
completely voluntary.”
The questionnaire should take no longer
than 20 minutes to complete and can be accessed online.
The follow-up telephone interviews, for those who wish to
participate, will concerns the participant’s thoughts, feelings and beliefs
since their challenging experience and how the event may have affected them.
The interviews will last around an hour and participants will be asked to give
verbal consent.
It is anticipated that the results of the
study, which has been approved by the King’s College London Research Ethics
Committee, will help develop interventions to better meet the needs of
veterinary professionals who may find themselves in distress due to morally
injurious events in the future.
The results of the study will also be published
in scientific journals and summaries will be made available for the relevant
stakeholders with the aim of informing future research studies to support
veterinary wellbeing, as well as clinical practice and policy.
Those who wish to find out more about the study
before completing the survey can contact Dr Williamson on victoria.williamson@kcl.ac.uk
