Dataset Information

Evaluation of a staff well-being program in a pediatric oncology, hematology, and palliative care services group.

ABSTRACT: Purpose:Challenges experienced by staff in the Oncology Services Group at Queensland Children's Hospital led to issues with staff retention, well-being, and stress on team culture. Therefore, a customized program was developed through a needs analysis to improve the well-being and resilience of oncology staff, enabling them to cope with stressors and critical incidents inherent in their everyday work and to flourish. The program included education, on-site counselors, mindfulness sessions, debriefing, well-being resources, and improved engagement, support, and communication. Methods:Evaluation of the program in the first year examined program participation, staff feedback following education workshops and mindfulness sessions, staff retention rates, and the results of an annual organizational staff survey and a program outcome survey. Results:Approximately 76% of staff attended the Introduction to Well-being workshop, and 98% of responses to survey questions were positive. Staff also provided positive feedback on the other well-being workshops and sessions embedded within existing education programs. Employee Assistance Program counseling sessions had an 81% uptake, with a wide variety of presenting issues, 62% related to work. All participants in mindfulness sessions agreed that it was a valuable tool to improve clinical practice, 94% said it had an immediate positive impact on their well-being, and 70% agreed that they were applying mindfulness principles outside the sessions. Staff retention and turnover improved. Staff reported a positive effect on awareness of self-care, addressing risks to resilience, seeking support from trusted colleagues, coping with critical incidents, and the ability to interact positively with patients and families. Conclusion:The evaluation showed a positive impact on staff well-being. Although there was a wide variety of successful interventions reported in the literature, sustainability needs to be considered. Feedback on this program found that staff appreciated being listened to, valued, and supported through the strategies, and the ongoing program will continue to monitor staff needs and be responsive in building their resilience and well-being.

SUBMITTER: Slater PJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6241860 | biostudies-other | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Evaluation of a staff well-being program in a pediatric oncology, hematology, and palliative care services group.

Slater Penelope J PJ Edwards Rachel M RM Badat Ashraf A AA

Journal of healthcare leadership 20181115

<h4>Purpose</h4>Challenges experienced by staff in the Oncology Services Group at Queensland Children's Hospital led to issues with staff retention, well-being, and stress on team culture. Therefore, a customized program was developed through a needs analysis to improve the well-being and resilience of oncology staff, enabling them to cope with stressors and critical incidents inherent in their everyday work and to flourish. The program included education, on-site counselors, mindfulness session ...[more]

PMID: 30532609

Similar Datasets

Project description:PurposeThe burnout rate among US radiation oncology residents was 33% in 2016. To our knowledge there are no published interventions addressing burnout among radiation oncology residents. We describe the implementation of a well-being curriculum, cocreated by a psychologist, a medical humanities professional, and radiation oncology attending and resident physicians.Methods and materialsRadiation oncology residents at our institution were surveyed to determine themes that induced burnout. A curriculum was developed, with monthly small group sessions focused on 1 identified topic. Sessions alternated between psychological tool-focused approaches and humanities exercises. These were led by a psychologist or medical humanities professional. Residents were given protected time to attend sessions during business hours. Participation was optional. Participants were assigned a random identifier, and the Stanford Professional Fulfillment Index (PFI) was assessed at baseline and 3-month intervals. PFI trends were analyzed after 1 year. At the end of the year, a focus group was held to evaluate work satisfaction and self-reported interactions with patients and coworkers. This information was used to improve the curriculum.ResultsAll 12 residents in the radiation oncology program participated in the curriculum. There was an equal number of residents of postgraduate years 2 through 5. Six of the participants were female. Of the participants, 11 completed the PFI. At baseline, 80% of residents met criteria for burnout. This decreased to 67%, 50%, and 33% at 3, 6, and 9 months, respectively. The proportion of residents meeting criteria for very good professional fulfillment was 30%, 56%, 38%, and 22% at baseline and 3, 6, and 9 months, respectively. On average, 9 of 12 residents attended each session.ConclusionsOur experience demonstrates the feasibility of collaborating with residents in the development of a well-being curriculum to cater programming to their needs, which we believe led to excellent engagement and attendance at each session.

Project description:BACKGROUND:In this paper we assess the quality of six deliberative stakeholder consultations regarding the implementation of a precision diagnostic for life-threatening pediatric brain tumors. Decision makers who base policy recommendations on the outputs of consultative exercises can presuppose that all deliberants are well informed of the policy issue, that participation in the deliberative process was fair, and that overcoming implementation barriers will necessarily result in practice change. Additional evidence is therefore needed to substantiate the informational quality of the deliberation, measure the equality of participation and study the effects on stakeholder reasoning to appropriately guide uptake of proposed recommendation(s). METHODS:Using the DeVries framework for assessing the deliberative quality, we analyzed data from 44 post-consultation evaluation surveys completed by pediatric oncology and palliative care teams at two tertiary pediatric healthcare centers in Canada. We also conducted turn-taking and word-contribution analyses from the text transcriptions of each deliberation to assess equality of participation using descriptive statistics. RESULTS:Deliberants agreed the quality of the deliberative process was fair (median ratings ranging from 9-10 out of 10) and the opportunities to receive expert information and discuss with others about the implementation of a new LDT were helpful (9.5 out of 10). While the session improved understanding of the implementation barriers and opportunities, it had marginal effects on deliberants' reasoning about whether LDTs would change their own clinical practice (3-10 out of 10). Participation was proportionate in at least four of the six deliberations, where no deliberant took more than 20% of total turns and contributed equal to, or less than 20% of total words. CONCLUSION:The quality assessment we performed demonstrates high informational value and perceived fairness of two deliberative stakeholder consultations involving pediatric palliative care and oncology teams in Canada. Quality assessments can reveal how the process of deliberation unfolds, whether deliberative outputs are the result of equitable participation among deliberants and what, if any, stakeholder voices may be missing. Such assessments should be routinely reported as a condition of methodological rigor and trustworthiness of deliberative stakeholder engagement research.

Dataset Information

Evaluation of a staff well-being program in a pediatric oncology, hematology, and palliative care services group.

Publications

Evaluation of a staff well-being program in a pediatric oncology, hematology, and palliative care services group.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets