Memes and Poetry

Abstract

Background: Health care workers (HCWs) face high levels of burnout, which can lead to workforce turnover and poor patient outcomes. Health care leaders should identify strategies to improve staff resilience. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe HCWs' perspective on using creative arts therapy to reduce burnout and improve resiliency. Methods: During Infection Prevention week, staff were encouraged to submit and vote on educational memes and haikus. Staff were asked their perspectives on how this activity could be used to reduce burnout and improve resiliency using a 4-point Likert scale. Results: Twenty-two staff members submitted 26 memes and 27 haikus. Staff felt this activity could be an effective strategy to help reduce burnout and improve resiliency. Conclusions: Further research is warranted to better understand the correlation between this form of art therapy and burnout and resiliency; however, health care leaders may consider using this as a tool for staff well-being.

Ambiguity Tolerance Can Improve through Poetry Appreciation and Creation

“…In poetry therapy-a form of psychotherapy that uses poetry as a therapeutic medium-patients bring poems that suit their feelings and appreciate them, or they recite poems they have composed and review them with the therapist (for review, see Alfrey, Field, Xenophontes, & Holttum, 2021). As part of poetry therapy, haiku has also been used with significant success (Reynolds & Sova, 2022). In particular, the positive psychological effects of appreciating and creating haiku have also been empirically demonstrated, with Stephenson and Rosen (2013) finding significantly less anxiety and physiological symptoms in a haikuwriting group than in a non-writing group over a three-day period.…”