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The benefits of mindfulness in mental healthcare professionals.

ABSTRACT: Background: Burnout is a widely reported syndrome consisting of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a lowered sense of accomplishment. Mindfulness practices have been shown to be useful in lowering distress and burnout in clinical and non-clinical cohorts. Our aim was to explore the potential personal and occupational benefits of a structured mindfulness intervention on a cohort of mental health professionals. A mixed-methods approach was utilised in order to enhance the exploratory power of the study. Methods: We conducted a pilot study involving healthcare practitioners employed at a community outpatient mental health clinic. As a pilot, we relied on a single group and implemented a quasi-experimental, simultaneous mixed methods design by incorporating both quantitative pre- and post- testing alongside written qualitative post-test responses. Results: Analysis of the data demonstrated a significant difference between overall mindfulness when comparing post-test (mean=140.8, standard deviation=18.9) with pre-test data (mean=128.3, standard deviation=28.6). Participants also showed a statistically significant difference in three of the subscales: observation, describing, and non-reactivity. A moderate effect size was seen for each of the above differences. Analysis of the qualitative data revealed a range of potential themes which may be used to explain the differences exhibited across participants' personal and professional lives, which can be grouped into two thematic overarching groups: emotional reactivity and listening/communicating. Conclusions: The results of this pilot study indicate that a structured, six-week mindfulness program has the potential to benefit clinicians, personally by reducing emotional reactivity and professionally by promoting deep listening and communication.

SUBMITTER: Watson T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8943343 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The benefits of mindfulness in mental healthcare professionals.

Watson Tayler T Walker Owen O Cann Robin R Varghese Ashwin K AK

F1000Research 20211025

<b>Background:</b> Burnout is a widely reported syndrome consisting of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a lowered sense of accomplishment. Mindfulness practices have been shown to be useful in lowering distress and burnout in clinical and non-clinical cohorts. Our aim was to explore the potential personal and occupational benefits of a structured mindfulness intervention on a cohort of mental health professionals. A mixed-methods approach was utilised in order to enhance the explorat ...[more]

PMID: 35387270

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Project description:IntroductionStress inherent to health care, which is characterized by work overload and shortage of specialized staff, is associated with decreased quality of life and suboptimal patient care. Mindfulness-based programs have proved to be effective in reducing stress in healthcare providers. This study aims to assess the feasibility of an 8-week mindfulness program to reduce the burnout levels of the staff of a pain clinic in a tertiary public hospital.Materials and methodsA longitudinal study with a within subject pre/post-intervention design, consisting of daily face-to-face 10-min sessions and the creation of a virtual group using a social media platform. Variables measured: burnout, mindfulness, empathy, self-compassion, and demographic characteristics.ResultsProgram feasibility (i.e., reach, adherence, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness) was evaluated in 10 participants (6 physicians, 2 nurse practitioners, 1 nursing assistant, and 1 administrative). The results revealed a high reach (i.e., participation rate of 90%), excellent adherence to the program (daily practice 95% of times), and very good acceptability of the group format and satisfaction with most treatment components. Regarding potential effectiveness, we report the results of the Wilcoxon signed-rank tests and its associated effect size (r). We observed improvements in mindfulness and all its subscales (-2.077 ≤ Z ≤ -2.703, 0.69 ≤ r ≤ 0.90, all p < 0.05) except for non-reactivity and all subcomponents of self-compassion (-2.501 ≤ Z ≤ -2.611, 0.83 ≤ r ≤ 0.87, all p < 0.05) but not on its global self-compassion score. Empathy and burnout did not change. In an exploratory manner, however, we found significant reductions in the burnout component of emotional exhaustion, but only in physicians (Z = -2.201, p = 0.028, r = 0.73).DiscussionWe believe that the 8-week mindfulness-based program described in the present investigation might be a feasible and potentially effective method that can be easily implemented to reduce burnout and promote mindfulness in specialized pain clinics.

Project description:IntroductionResearch shows that mental health-related stigma, stereotypes, and prejudices have a negative impact on the patients themselves as well as on their families and social entourage. Healthcare professionals, whose expertise and professional ethos are historically acknowledged by public opinion, are expected to play a major role in combating discrimination against psychiatric patients. In this study, we aimed to assess the attitudes of Greek healthcare professionals toward mental illness and people suffering from it.Materials and methodsIt is a non-interventional, analytic study, in which 479 health workers from a tertiary hospital in Thessaloniki, Greece, participated. Every single hospital service -except the personnel of the Psychiatric Clinic- was included in our study: from the cleaning service to the administrative staff and the auxiliary staff such as stretcher carriers, food and nutrition services' staff, and social workers, the nursing staff, and finally the attending physicians, taking into consideration that the psychiatric patient, from the moment he/she enters the hospital, consecutively gets in contact with every work grade of the healthcare establishment. Participants' attitudes concerning mental illness have been evaluated using the Opinions about Mental Illness Scale (OMI), the Social Distance Scale (SDS), and the Level of Contact Report (LCR-12).ResultsDespite the high level of familiarity [as evaluated with LCR-12; mean score (μ): 8.82 ± 1.73], the employees displayed a rather poor willingness to interact with psychiatric patients (as measured with SDS; μ:11.68 ± 4.28), and endorsed significant prejudice toward individuals with mental disorders (assessed using OMI subscales; Social Discrimination μ: 22.99 ± 12.08, Social Restriction μ: 17.45 ± 9.07, Social Care μ: 21.04 ± 4.12, Social Integration μ: 16.38 ± 4.68, Etiology μ: 9.80 ± 4.95). Age and education stood out as the main determinants of participants' attitudes, with younger and highly educated participants to have shown a relatively refined profile.ConclusionThese results are not significantly improved compared to those of previous decades in Greek healthcare professionals and call for critical reflection and targeted stigma-reduction efforts.

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The benefits of mindfulness in mental healthcare professionals.

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The benefits of mindfulness in mental healthcare professionals.

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