Abstract
Objectives
During the pandemic, establishing effective interventions to mitigate burnout is essential to ensure the provision of stable healthcare. This study examined the efficacy of a 4-week online mindfulness program on healthcare workers’ burnout to explore whether brief online programs can influence healthcare workers’ wellbeing by decreasing signs and symptoms of burnout.
Methods
We examined differences between healthcare workers’ burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment) at three time points (baseline, post-intervention, and follow-up survey) using linear regression analyses accounting and without accounting for covariates. Covariates included demographic (age, sex), work-related (year of work experience, mode of care), resiliency (the ability to bounce back from hardship), and mindfulness-related factors (number of practices per week, prior experience of mindfulness, number of sessions attended). A total of n = 130 healthcare workers in Ontario, Canada, participated in the study (October 2020 to March 2021).
Results
Without accounting for the covariates, the two components of burnout, emotional exhaustion (feelings of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one’s work) and depersonalization (an unfeeling and impersonal response toward recipients of one’s service, care, treatment, or instruction) levels, were significantly lower after the 4-week mindfulness program compared to the baseline and remained lower after 4 weeks. However, the personal accomplishment level (feelings of competence and achievement in one’s work) remained unchanged after the mindfulness program. Resiliency significantly contributed to reducing emotional exhaustion. Number of mindfulness practices contributed to reducing emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and enhancing personal accomplishment.
Conclusions
The findings provide a basis for healthcare organizational development decision-makers to consider employee-facing mindfulness programs. It also informs curriculum designers of mindfulness education and training programs to create online programs for maximum efficacy.