Feasibility of a brief mindfulness-based program for burnout in pain healthcare professionals

Anna Server; Carlos Suso-Ribera; Marcos Pérez-Carrasco; Javier Medel; Ángela Mesas; Alfonso Ayora; Rosa Maria Gracia

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1009266

Feasibility of a brief mindfulness-based program for burnout in pain healthcare professionals

Front Psychol. 2022 Nov 7:13:1009266. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1009266. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Anna Server^{1

2}, Carlos Suso-Ribera^{3

4}, Marcos Pérez-Carrasco^{2

5}, Javier Medel^{1

2}, Ángela Mesas^{1

2}, Alfonso Ayora⁶, Rosa Maria Gracia^{2

5}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Anesthesiology, Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron, Barcelona, Spain.
² Vall d'Hebron Research Institute, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
³ Department of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatments, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló, Spain.
⁴ Institute of Health Carlos III, CIBERObn CB06 03/0052, Madrid, Spain.
⁵ Department of Critical Care, Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron, Barcelona, Spain.
⁶ Department of Occupational Health, Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron, Barcelona, Spain.

Abstract

Introduction: Stress 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 methods: A 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.

Results: Program 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).

Discussion: We 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.

Keywords: burnout; health professionals; mindfulness; pain clinic; stress.