Improving Resiliency in Air Force Personnel

The study purpose is to examine the effectiveness of the Stress Management and Resilience Training (SMART) in increasing resilience in Air Force (AF) healthcare personnel. SMART includes practices that focus on six factors that promote individual-level resilience. A pretest-posttest, randomized control trial will be used to examine the effectiveness of SMART and is guided by the Defense Centers of Excellence Resilience Continuum. After institutional review board approval, the principal investigator (PI) will recruit a sample of AF healthcare personnel assigned to the 88th Medical Group or USAF School of Aerospace Medicine at Wright Patterson AF Base. SMART will be provided via either a two-hour, video teleconference (VTC) or in-person training or a self-paced, on-line version completed over four to eight weeks. VTC or on-line versions will be utilized to prevent transmission of COVID-19. If in-person training is feasible and safe at a future point in time, in-person training will replace VTC training. A baseline survey will include questions regarding age, gender, marital status, race, ethnicity, previous deployment, military rank, and military job duty. The Connor Davidson 10-Item Resilience Scale has demonstrated reliability and validity, and has been used in studies to measure service member resilience. Additional measures include the Perceived Stress Scale, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale, and a Quality of Life measure. The CD-10, PSS, GAD-7, and QoL measure will be readministered 12, 18, and 24-weeks after SMART completion. Initial analysis will include descriptive statistics to characterize demographics, military grade, duty location, and previous deployment status. Cronbach's α will be calculated for each scale. Analyses will be reported as point estimates with 95% confidence intervals and estimates of effect size. Both VTC and on-line groups will be analyzed separately and scores will be pooled to test for overall intervention effects. Regression models will be conducted on the pre-post intervention difference while controlling for demographic characteristics and previous deployment. The investigators will consider clustering effects among participants from the same organizational unit using random effects. Changes in resilience, stress, anxiety, and QoL over time will be assessed by analyzing changes from baseline to weeks 12, 18, and 24. The investigators will consider a joint analysis of resilience, stress, anxiety, or QOL.