Projecte Benestar 2026 is a multicenter randomized controlled study evaluating a brief immersive educational program delivered through virtual reality for healthcare workers. The program is designed to support emotional well-being, self-care, mindfulness, and emotional regulation in professionals working in healthcare settings.

Participants will be active healthcare or healthcare-support workers from participating centers. They will be randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group will receive the virtual reality program at the beginning of the study, while the other group will continue usual activity and receive the same program later, after a wait-list period.

The main objective is to evaluate whether the program reduces emotional exhaustion, measured with the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Secondary objectives include evaluating changes in depersonalization, personal accomplishment, work engagement, usability, satisfaction, adherence, and tolerability of the virtual reality program.

This is a multicenter randomized controlled trial with a delayed-start wait-list control design. The study will evaluate Projecte Benestar, an immersive educational virtual reality program designed to support emotional well-being, self-care, mindfulness, emotional regulation, and self-compassion among workers in healthcare settings.

The study population will include active professionals working in participating healthcare organizations, including clinical and non-clinical staff with direct healthcare contact or support functions. Participating institutions may include primary care, hospital, and intermediate care settings. Recruitment will be conducted among eligible workers who voluntarily agree to participate and provide informed consent.

Participants will be randomized in a 1:1 ratio, stratified by center, to one of two study groups. Group A will receive the intervention during the first weeks of the study. Group B will continue usual activity during the initial period and will receive the same intervention after a wait-list period of approximately 6 months. This delayed-start design allows comparison between immediate intervention and usual activity while ensuring that all participants are eventually offered the program.

The intervention consists of eight brief individual virtual reality sessions delivered through autonomous virtual reality headsets. Each session lasts approximately 9 to 15 minutes and combines short educational content with guided immersive practice. The contents include mindfulness, breathing exercises, body scan practices, emotional regulation strategies, the RAIN technique, self-compassion, and a final integration session. Sessions may be delivered in a standard 8-week format with one session per week, or in an intensive 4-week format with two sessions per week, depending on local logistical capacity.

The virtual reality content is fixed and non-adaptive. All participants receive the same sequence of sessions. The application does not require internet connection during use and does not collect automatic data from the device. Participants complete sessions seated in a quiet institutional space, with a local study reference person available for technical support or in case of discomfort.

The primary outcome is change in emotional exhaustion measured with the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey. Secondary outcomes include the other burnout dimensions of depersonalization and personal accomplishment, work engagement measured with the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, usability measured with the System Usability Scale, participant satisfaction, adherence to the sessions, and tolerability or incidents related to virtual reality use.

Data will be collected at baseline, after the first intervention cycle, at 6 months, after the delayed intervention cycle, and at 12 months. The main analysis will compare changes in outcomes between the immediate intervention group and the wait-list control group, with additional within-group pre-post analyses and follow-up assessments over time.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Active permanent or temporary staff member at a participating healthcare center where the program is implemented
• Age 18 years or older
• Able to understand, accept, and sign the informed consent form
• Willing to complete the study procedures, attend the planned weekly sessions, and complete the study questionnaires

Exclusion Criteria:

• Photosensitive epilepsy or history of seizures triggered by visual stimuli
• Severe motion sickness or previous intolerance to immersive devices
• Visual or hearing impairment that prevents adequate use of the virtual reality headset

De-identified individual participant data underlying the results reported in future publications may be shared upon reasonable request to the corresponding author. Data will not be publicly available in an open repository. Access will be subject to approval by the study investigators, institutional data protection requirements, and, where required, a data sharing agreement.

De-identified individual participant data and supporting documents will be available beginning 6 months after publication of the main study results and for 5 years thereafter.

De-identified individual participant data underlying the published results may be shared upon reasonable request to the corresponding author. Access will be limited to researchers who provide a methodologically sound proposal for approved research purposes. Requests will be reviewed by the study investigators and, where required, by the participating institutions. Data will not be made publicly available in an open repository. Access will be subject to applicable data protection requirements and, if required, a data sharing agreement.

Participants and local study staff cannot be masked because of the nature of the virtual reality intervention. Outcome data will be collected using standardized self-administered questionnaires. The outcomes assessor/statistician responsible for scoring and analyzing the primary and secondary questionnaire outcomes will be masked to group allocation until the primary analysis is completed.