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NCT Number: NCT05571488

Swiss Cohort of Health Professionals and Informal Caregivers

The healthcare system is continuously evolving to adapt to the population's needs, both in terms of healthcare practices, and in financial and organizational aspects. The current COVID-19 pandemic has added additional pressure to the healthcare system and shown its limits in terms of preparedness. It has also shown once again that both healthcare professionals (HCPs) and informal caregivers (ICs) play a central role for the functioning of the healthcare system.

An increasing number of studies are alerting on HCPs' situation, regarding their physical and mental health (e.g. emotional exhaustion, professional well-being) on the one hand, and the functioning of the healthcare system (e.g. absenteeism, turnover, career change) on the other hand.

Besides healthcare professionals, ICs, defined as "a person in the immediate entourage of an individual whose health and/or autonomy is impaired and who requires assistance with certain [basic or instrumental] activities of daily living. The IC provides the person, on a non-professional and informal basis, and on a regular basis, with assistance, care or presence services of varying nature and intensity, designed to compensate for their incapacities or difficulties or to ensure their safety, identity and social ties". Caring for others has shown to have negative impact on the ICs' life, in terms of health-related implications, psychological burden, quality of life, etc. Despite being increasingly recognized as having a key role in the provision of care, they have only been limitedly considered in studies on healthcare professionals.

In that context, the investigators develop SCOHPICA project, the Swiss cohort of healthcare professionals and informal caregivers, which is an open prospective national cohort using a concurrent embedded mixed method design. This project targets all types of HCPs and ICs, and will investigate determinants of intent to stay and well-being according to participants' trajectories.

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Key information

Conditions

Healthcare Professional Informal Caregiver

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Observational

Primary location

Center for Primary Care and Public Health (Unisante), University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Lausanne, 1010, Switzerland

Location status: Recruiting

Location contact

Study coordinator

CONTACT

[email protected]

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

(HCPs):

  • Working as HCP, in any profession
  • Taking care of patients currently and actively
  • Working in any health work setting
  • Working as an independent or a salaried
  • Working in Switzerland

Exclusion criteria

(HCPs):

  • Being retired at baseline
  • Unable to read or speak in one of the national languages: German, French, Italian

Inclusion criteria

(ICs):

  • Being informal cargiver
  • Aged 18 and over (adults)

Exclusion criteria

(ICs):

  • Unable to read or speak in one of the national languages: German, French, Italian

Treatment and study plan

Electronic surveys

Other

Online questionnaires is used to collect data, at recruitment and follow-up once a year. For the ICs, paper questionnaire will be provided upon request.

Qualitative Interviews

Other

Remote focus groups or semi-structured interviews will be proposed to a subsample of the participants, first in 2025 and then every two years

Primary outcomes

  1. Professional trajectories (HCPs), constructed from socio-professional variables [1]

    Time frame: At baseline

    Professional trajectories will be formulated based on socio-professional information (current and past occupation, education, work setting, career continuity, part-time contracts). Clustering procedures will be used to group healthcare professionals with similar trajectories, building thus a typology of professional trajectories in the Swiss health workforce.

  2. Professional trajectories (HCPs), constructed from socio-professional variables [2]

    Time frame: 1 year after the baseline

    Follow-up data will be used to complement the professional trajectories constructed on baseline socio-professional information. Changes in the variables which form the trajectories will be assessed and new typologies will be derived from the enhanced trajectories.

  3. Professional trajectories (HCPs), constructed from socio-professional variables [3]

    Time frame: 2 years after the baseline

    Follow-up data will be used to complement the professional trajectories constructed on baseline socio-professional information. Changes in the variables which form the trajectories will be assessed and new typologies will be derived from the enhanced trajectories.

  4. Professional trajectories (HCPs), constructed from socio-professional variables [4]

    Time frame: 3 years after the baseline

    Follow-up data will be used to complement the professional trajectories constructed on baseline socio-professional information. Changes in the variables which form the trajectories will be assessed and new typologies will be derived from the enhanced trajectories.

  5. Professional trajectories (HCPs), constructed from socio-professional variables [5]

    Time frame: 4 years after the baseline

    Follow-up data will be used to complement the professional trajectories constructed on baseline socio-professional information. Changes in the variables which form the trajectories will be assessed and new typologies will be derived from the enhanced trajectories.

  6. Intention to stay in the profession/position (HCPs) [1]

    Time frame: At baseline

    Assessed using two questions: 1) intent to stay in the profession and 2) intent to stay in the current position

  7. Intention to stay in the profession/position (HCPs) [2]

    Time frame: 1 year after the baseline

    Assessed using two questions: 1) intent to stay in the profession and 2) intent to stay in the current position

  8. Intention to stay in the profession/position (HCPs) [3]

    Time frame: 2 years after the baseline

    Assessed using two questions: 1) intent to stay in the profession and 2) intent to stay in the current position

  9. Intention to stay in the profession/position (HCPs) [4]

    Time frame: 3 years after the baseline

    Assessed using two questions: 1) intent to stay in the profession and 2) intent to stay in the current position

  10. Intention to stay in the profession/position (HCPs) [5]

    Time frame: 4 years after the baseline

    Assessed using two questions: 1) intent to stay in the profession and 2) intent to stay in the current position

  11. Intention to leave the profession/position/health sector (HCPs) [1]

    Time frame: At baseline

    Assessed using three questions: within next 5 years …1) intent to leave the profession, 2) intent to leave the current position and 3) intent to leave the health sector

  12. Intention to leave the profession/position/health sector (HCPs) [2]

    Time frame: 1 year after the baseline

    Assessed using three questions: within next 5 years …1) intent to leave the profession, 2) intent to leave the current position and 3) intent to leave the health sector

  13. Intention to leave the profession/position/health sector (HCPs) [3]

    Time frame: 2 years after the baseline

    Assessed using three questions: within next 5 years …1) intent to leave the profession, 2) intent to leave the current position and 3) intent to leave the health sector

  14. Intention to leave the profession/position/health sector (HCPs) [4]

    Time frame: 3 years after the baseline

    Assessed using three questions: within next 5 years …1) intent to leave the profession, 2) intent to leave the current position and 3) intent to leave the health sector

  15. Intention to leave the profession/position/health sector (HCPs) [5]

    Time frame: 4 years after the baseline

    Assessed using three questions: within next 5 years …1) intent to leave the profession, 2) intent to leave the current position and 3) intent to leave the health sector

  16. Well-being (HCPs) [1]

    Time frame: At baseline

    Assessed using the10 items of the Flourish Index (FI). FI score can range from 0 (lowest response category for the 10 items) to 10 (highest response category for the 10 items). High scores imply that respondents perceive themselves very positively in terms of human flourishing.

  17. Well-being (HCPs) [2]

    Time frame: 1 year after the baseline

    Assessed using the10 items of the Flourish Index (FI). FI score can range from 0 (lowest response category for the 10 items) to 10 (highest response category for the 10 items). High scores imply that respondents perceive themselves very positively in terms of human flourishing.

  18. Well-being (HCPs) [3]

    Time frame: 2 years after the baseline

    Assessed using the10 items of the Flourish Index (FI). FI score can range from 0 (lowest response category for the 10 items) to 10 (highest response category for the 10 items). High scores imply that respondents perceive themselves very positively in terms of human flourishing.

  19. Well-being (HCPs) [4]

    Time frame: 3 years after the baseline

    Assessed using the10 items of the Flourish Index (FI). FI score can range from 0 (lowest response category for the 10 items) to 10 (highest response category for the 10 items). High scores imply that respondents perceive themselves very positively in terms of human flourishing.

  20. Well-being (HCPs) [5]

    Time frame: 4 years after the baseline

    Assessed using the10 items of the Flourish Index (FI). FI score can range from 0 (lowest response category for the 10 items) to 10 (highest response category for the 10 items). High scores imply that respondents perceive themselves very positively in terms of human flourishing.

Study contacts

Contact information is provided by the study sponsor or research team.

Study coordinator

CONTACT

[email protected]

+41 21 314 77 25

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

Center for Primary Care and Public Health (Unisante), University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Other

Collaborators

  • Haute école de travail social et de la santé Lausanne - HETSL
  • Institut et Haute Ecole de la Santé la Source
  • University of Lausanne Hospitals

Registry information

Official study title

Swiss Cohort of Health Professionals and Informal Caregivers - SCOHPICA

Acronym: SCOHPICA

Important dates

Study start
2022
Primary completion
2026
Study completion
2026
First posted
Oct 7, 2022
Registry last updated
Jan 6, 2026

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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