The Effect of a Mindfulness-Based Intervention on Family-Work and Work-Family Conflicts Among Nurses: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Purpose: Nurses’ working environment poses various challenges that lead to conflict between work- and family-related roles. Work-family and family-work conflicts (WFCs and FWCs) negatively affect nurses’ well-being and patient outcomes. Thus, the current study examined the effectiveness of a mindfulness-based intervention on WFC and FWC among nurses. Method: A randomized controlled trial, pre–post-test design was used in the current study. A total of 123 nurses were recruited and randomly assigned to the intervention ( n = 60) and control ( n = 63) groups. Findings: Multivariate analysis showed that there was a statistically significant effect of the intervention on the linear combination of the dependent variables V = 0.1, F (2, 120) = 6.61, p < .01. The analyses showed that the mean difference of the WFCs and FWCs scores was significant with the intervention group showing lower mean scores than the control group. In addition, both groups showed higher work-family conflict mean scores compared to the FWC. Discussion: The findings of this study showed that the mindfulness-based intervention significantly improved nurses’ WFCs and FWCs. The results should be considered when planning for nurses’ well-being and the quality of care being provided to promote holistic nursing care.