Abstract
Mindfulness in Motion (MIM) is an organizationally-sponsored mindfulness program for employees at a large academic health center that consistently produces significant reductions in burnout and perceived stress, alongside significant increases in work engagement and resilience. This study compared outcome measures of a synchronous virtual delivery of MIM, necessitated by COVID-19, to traditional in-person delivery of MIM. Outcome measures from the virtual COVID (AU20, WI21, SP21) MIM cohorts (n = 99) were compared with the in-person Pre-COVID (SP19, AU19, WI20) MIM cohorts (n = 124). Both Pre-COVID and COVID cohorts had similar attendance rates with an average attendance of 84 and 80%, respectively. Qualitative analysis of COVID cohorts reported community support during COVID as a substantial intervention benefit, which was important at a time when isolation dominated the healthcare professional experience. Total burnout was determined by scores on the subscales of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). There were no significant differences in depersonalization (p = 0.3876) and personal accomplishment (p = 0.1519) changes between Pre-COVID and COVID cohorts, however there was a significant difference in emotional exhaustion (p = 0.0315), with COVID cohorts improving more. In both Pre, and COVID cohorts, the percentage of people meeting burnout criteria from pre to post between groups were similar, yielding a non-significant difference (p = 0.2950). The Connor Davidson Resiliency Scale (CDRS) and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) also produced no significant differences between groups (p = 0.4259, p = 0.1984, respectively). The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) though yielded significant differences in reduction between groups (p = 0.0405), again with COVID cohorts showing greater improvement. Results of the first synchronous, virtually delivered MIM cohorts reflect that participants achieved very similar results and that MIM created a community in a time when it was greatly needed due to pandemic healthcare professional stress.
Highlights
Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) face a variety of workplace stressors that contribute to high rates of burnout (Dyrbye et al, 2017)
The results presented highlight the effectiveness of virtual Mindfulness in Motion (MIM) programming, by showing the reliability of results as compared to Pre-COVID, in-person delivery of MIM
Resilience, and work engagement showed similar improvements when comparing pre-post MIM changes between Pre-COVID and COVID cohorts, there were significant differences in emotional exhaustion and perceived stress. This is reflected in the qualitative feedback as well, as participants often mentioned increased stress levels due to the demands and trauma of being an HCP during COVID-19
Summary
Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) face a variety of workplace stressors that contribute to high rates of burnout (Dyrbye et al, 2017). At the start of COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the authors realized that HCPs more than ever, needed workplace mindfulness programming (Shanafelt et al, 2020; Loucks et al, 2021) They were faced with a novel challenge: how to provide mindfulness programming to frontline workers without the ability to be in a room together, as even hybrid delivery of MIM involved participants and facilitators in the same physical space. The present study aims to compare Pre-COVID, in-person delivery of MIM to COVID, fully virtual delivery of MIM on four main outcome measures: perceived stress, burnout, resilience, and work engagement. This addresses a recent call in the literature to compare effectiveness of virtual mindfulness interventions to in-person interventions containing the same content (Jayawardene et al, 2017)
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