Brief Mindfulness Intervention for Emotional Distress, Resilience, and Compassion in Family Physicians During COVID-19: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Background and Objective: There are high rates of professional burnout among family physicians and trainees. We undertook this study to investigate whether a brief mindfulness intervention could help manage burnout and improve well-being among family physicians in a residency program. Methods: A total of 21 family physicians participated in a brief, 8-week mindfulness program. We used a single-sample, pre/post design at a Midwestern family medicine residency program. At two points in time (baseline and postintervention), participants completed an online survey measuring burnout, depression, anxiety, stress, perceived resilience, and compassion. We used linear mixed models to estimate the effect of the intervention on the outcome measures. Results: Participants had improvements after the 8-week intervention. At postintervention, they had significantly better scores on anxiety (P<.004), stress (P<.001), perceived resilience (P<.001), and compassion (P<.001). There were no significant changes on the personal accomplishment, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization subscales of either the abbreviated Maslach Burnout Inventory or the depression subscale of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21. Conclusion: This brief mindfulness program was associated with significant reduction in the scores of anxiety and stress as well as significant improvement in perceived resilience and compassion scores. Brief mindfulness interventions may be a convenient and effective approach to support and improve health and well-being among family physicians.

Relationship between self-psychological adjustment and post-traumatic growth in patients with lung cancer undergoing chemotherapy: a cross-sectional study

“…52 A possible explanation may be that in patients in the high-SOC/low-PCER group, trauma may motivate them to take positive coping measures to solve problems (eg, adjusting their diet, increasing physical exercise and learning about the disease), which enhances SOC. 53 Furthermore, patients adopt PCER to reassess the impact of trauma and analyse the reason for trauma. This can form a positive feedback mechanism between SOC and PCER.…”

Online Short-Term Mindfulness-Based Intervention During COVID-19 Quarantine in Italy: Effects on Wellbeing, Stress, and Anxiety

“…During COVID-19 pandemic, research works were performed to investigate the effect of different MBI on psychological indicators of wellbeing in different target populations, even if, as far as we know, ours represent the first study performed during the first lockdown testing the hypotheses of a beneficial effect of a MBI on wellbeing, stress, and state anxiety different based on baseline levels of trait anxiety on general non-clinical population. For example, a cross-sectional study (Priyanka and Rasania, 2021 ) during COVID-19 pandemic on the general population reported higher mental wellbeing scores and lower risk of psychological distress and depression in subjects practicing yoga and meditation; The study of Nutting et al ( 2022 ) conducted on family physicians showed a reduction of anxiety, stress, and an increasing in perceiving resilience and compassion after a brief mindfulness intervention. A positive effect of MBI was also observed in the study by González-García et al ( 2021 ) where a brief online mindfulness and compassion-based intervention increase mental health on first-year psychology students from a university in Spain during COVID-19 pandemic, and in Desai et al ( 2021 ) where an 8-week heartfulness meditation program showed a positive impact on stress and sleep quality.…”