Effects of a Technology-Assisted Meditation Program on Healthcare Providers’ Interoceptive Awareness, Compassion Fatigue, and Burnout

Abstract

Research suggests that meditation can relieve stress, cultivate self-regulation skills, improve ability to focus, and modify risk for compassion fatigue (CF) and burnout in healthcare providers. However, studied interventions are time-consuming and combining disparate approaches, resulting in unclear mechanisms of effect. This pilot study examined a novel 6-week technology-assisted meditation program, coherently grounded in the system of yoga therapy that required minimal time. Five 10- to 12-minute meditations were offered via smartphone apps supported by biweekly e-mails. Hospice and palliative professionals at a Midwestern US healthcare network participated in the program (n = 36). Each meditation integrated attention, synchronized breath, gentle movements and a meditation focus. Weekly e-mails introduced a new meditation and reminded participants how and why to practice. The participants used the meditations a mean of 17.18(SD, 8.69) times. Paired t tests found significant presurvey to postsurvey improvements for CF/burnout (P < .05) and interoceptive awareness (P < .001). Participation significantly heightened perceived ability and propensity to direct attention to bodily sensations, increased awareness of physical sensations’ connections to emotions, and increased active body listening. The technology-assisted yoga therapy meditation program successfully motivated providers to meditate. The program required minimal time yet seemed to reduce CF/burnout and improve emotional awareness and self-regulation by heightening attention to present-moment bodily sensations.

Hospice and Palliative Care Provider Experiences With Meditation Using Mobile Applications

“…Weekly follow-up emails reinforced principles and reminded participants to do the daily meditations using the apps, motivating ongoing personal practice and guiding recognition of resultant mind-body changes. Findings demonstrated significant improvements in compassion fatigue and interoceptive awareness from pre-to postintervention in the study group (Heeter et al, 2017).…”

“…The focus group findings provide important insights into the personal experiences of participants engaged in an app-based meditation program (Heeter et al, 2017) that aimed to build capacity to adaptively respond to work-related stressors, combat compassion fatigue, and improve professional quality of life.…”

“…Acceptability and feasibility data in terms of documented recruitment statistics, attrition, and tracked user data were collected and are reported in Heeter et al (2017). However, in the early stages of developing an intervention using health-tracking apps, it is essential that qualitative feedback from users is elicited prior to wider-scale testing in a formal randomized, controlled trial (Birkhoff & Smeltzer, 2017).…”

“…The established approach permits participants with shared encounters to discuss viewpoints in a format where they can exchange meaningful information that leads to relevant thematic content areas (Kisorio & Langley, 2016). The purpose of the study was to evaluate perceptions of users of the app-based meditation program (Heeter et al, 2017 (Heeter et al, 2017).…”

‘Wasting time inside my mind’: Exploring student pharmacists’ perspectives on engaging in mindfulness oriented meditation using concepts from education research

“…MOM, while not mainstream, has been gaining popularity due to increased cultural attention surrounding its role in wellness initiatives and the proliferation of web-and smartphone-based tools for guided meditation (Heeter et al, 2017;Economides et al, 2018;Pospos et al, 2018). In general, MOM refers to a deliberate meditative practice where one focuses their mind on a particular physiologic sensation (e.g.…”