Abstract
The aim of our internet-based intervention study was to find out whether healthcare professionals can autonomously down-regulate the stress they experience at their workplace, using an established self-regulation tool called Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII). Applying MCII to reduce stress implied for our participants to repeatedly engage in a mental exercise that (1) required specifying a wish related to reducing stress, (2) identifying and imagining its most desired positive outcome, (3) detecting and imagining the obstacle that holds them back, and (4) coming up with an if-then plan on how to overcome it. We recruited on-line nurses employed at various health institutions all over Germany, and randomly assigned participants to one of three groups. In the MCII group (n = 33), participants were taught how to use this exercise via email and the participants were asked to engage in the exercise on a daily basis for a period of 3 weeks. As compared to two control groups, one being a no-treatment control group (n = 35) and the other a modified MCII group (n = 32), our experimental MCII group showed a reduced stress level and an enhanced work engagement. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the present study as well as ways to intensify MCII effects on stress reduction.
Highlights
There are numerous factors that can make the work of healthcare providers stressful
We included this third condition because we were worried that healthcare professionals might not find the time to perform Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII) on a regular basis, and only a moderate stress reduction might be observed in the mere MCII group
Pairwise comparisons revealed less stress in the MCII group as compared to the control group, t(101) = 2.39, p = 0.019, η2p = 0.053, 95% CI [−0.348, −0.032]
Summary
There are numerous factors that can make the work of healthcare providers stressful. For instance, caregivers sometimes have to face the death of patients, and there can be conflicts with the family of the patient. We added a further intervention group (i.e., IIMCII); here participants were asked to furnish the goal to engage in daily MCII exercises, assigned by the experimenter, with an implementation intention that specified when and where they planned to execute these MCII exercises We included this third condition because we were worried that healthcare professionals might not find the time to perform MCII on a regular basis, and only a moderate stress reduction might be observed in the mere MCII group. Based on previous research showing beneficial effects of implementation intentions on goal attainment (Gollwitzer, 2014), we hypothesized that participants in the IIMCII condition would benefit from using if- plans that specify the situation in which they wanted to engage in MCII, showing even more stress reduction and even more work engagement than participants in the mere MCII condition. Participants’ stress level was assessed prior to the intervention and 3 weeks later with established self-report questionnaires pertaining to perceived stress, stress-related physical symptoms, and work engagement
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