The impact of a psychological support service on the mental well-being, stress, and burnout of U.K.-based health care professionals: A multiple-methods service evaluation.

Abstract

Health care professionals (HCPs) are particularly vulnerable to low mental well-being, stress, and burnout. While a dedicated psychological support service (PSS) is often highly valued, the evidence supporting its effectiveness remains limited and inconclusive. We used different methodologies for service evaluation. First, we recruited a cohort of 124 HCPs (including service users and nonusers), who prospectively completed two online surveys (∼4 months apart), containing validated assessments for mental well-being (Short Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale), perceived stress (Perceived Stress Scale-4), resilience (Brief Resilience Scale), and burnout (single item abbreviated Maslach Burnout Inventory-Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalisation and subscales). The cohort was stratified by PSS service use over the ∼4 months. Second, among service users, we conducted one-to-one qualitative interviews (n = 11) to further explore the aspects related to perceived impact and areas of improvement and incorporated data from separate open-ended feedback survey items from service users (n = 80). Compared with nonservice use, one-to-one/one-to-one and group service use was significantly associated with increased Short Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale score (β = 3.25, 95% CI [1.33, 5.18]) and decreased Perceived Stress Scale-4 score (-1.51 [-2.93, -0.08]) over 4 months. Among the whole cohort, improved Short Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale score over 4 months was associated with a 14% reduced risk of intention to leave work at the end of the 4 months (adjusted OR 0.86 [0.77, 0.97], p = .013). Thematic analysis generated themes describing how the PSS supports the HCPs on various work-related and nonwork-related issues but identified areas of improvement: awareness and accessing the service, information and image of the service, relationship between the PSS and HCP managers/team leads, and the location of the sessions. Overall, a PSS dedicated to HCPs appears to be beneficial in supporting their mental well-being, which could potentially yield cost-related advantages by mitigating the risk of staff turnover. These findings may help guide policymakers in resource allocation for HCP support and inform the development of similar PSS models embedded within health care systems globally. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).