Quality of Life and Compassion Satisfaction in Clinicians: A Pilot Intervention Study for Reducing Compassion Fatigue

Abstract

While the small sample size of this pilot study limits the generalizability of the findings, there were positive effects for CS and BO in participants over time, indicating possible benefits of providing self-care education to healthcare providers. Additional research with a larger sample size is needed to address how healthcare providers might further benefit from resiliency education and interventions to improve professional quality of life.

Assessment of Patient Knowledge and Perceptions of Pharmacogenomics Before and After Using a Mock Results Patient Web Portal

“…Although the patient groups receiving the PGx educational intervention were small in this pilot study, the ~ 20% improvements in knowledge about PGx are on par with other similar educational interventions outside of the realm of genomics . Interestingly, after accessing the patient portal, almost all patients (90%) would share their results with their healthcare providers and 60% would share their results with pharmacists.…”

“…We prespecified a target sample size of 10–12 participants per group for the 2 separate days of testing (anticipating that there would be dropout among those who agreed by telephone before the actual participation day). This planned sample size was in accordance with other literature, which demonstrated that detectable increases in knowledge and changes in perceptions were measurable in pilot groups of this size . We contacted patients by telephone for potential participation in one of two study sessions: one group consisted of patients who had previously received broad pre‐emptive genomic testing and whose actual results had been previously made available to their treating physicians (PGx), and a second control group consisted of patients who had not received genomic testing within the context of “The 1200 Patients Project,” reflecting traditional care (TC).…”

“…Although the patient groups receiving the PGx educational intervention were small in this pilot study, the ~ 20% improvements in knowledge about PGx are on par with other similar educational interventions outside of the realm of genomics. [19][20][21] Interestingly, after accessing the patient portal, almost all patients (90%) would share their results with their healthcare providers and 60% would share their results with pharmacists. These findings alone may justify further exploration of the true impact of allowing patients to have direct access to their own PGx test results (whether willingness to share PGx results might be medication-specific is a topic that was underpowered for our current study but we plan to explore this in our follow-up Figure 5 Likert-scale questions to assess patients' perceptions of the usability and understandability of the YourPGx Portal.…”

“…This planned sample size was in accordance with other literature, which demonstrated that detectable increases in knowledge and changes in perceptions were measurable in pilot groups of this size. 19,20 We contacted patients by telephone for potential participation in one of two study sessions: one group consisted of patients who had previously received broad pre-emptive genomic testing and whose actual results had been previously made available to their treating physicians (PGx), and a second control group consisted of patients who had not received genomic testing within the context of "The 1200 Patients Project," reflecting traditional care (TC). Purposeful sampling of both cohorts was carried out by continuous assessment of the demographics of confirmed participants to guide subsequent telephone call invitations in order to ensure that the demographic characteristics of participants in each study session were not significantly different.…”

Advanced Practice Provider Perspectives on Organizational Strategies for Work Stress Reduction

“…Often seen as a dual-edged problem, work stress impacts not only the individual but also the organization in terms of lost productivity, absenteeism, and health-related costs (Yuwanich, Sandmark, & Akhavan, 2016). The lexicon and science that have now developed in conjunction with work stress encompass burnout, depression, compassion fatigue, engagement, emotional intelligence, resilience, as well as job satisfaction and job turnover (Bianchi, Mayor, Schonfeld, & Laurent, 2018; Klein, Riggenbach-Hays, Sollenberger, Harney, & McGarvey, 2018; Väänänen et al, 2012). Various researchers have examined these characteristics of individuals in relation to work-contextualized factors, such as autonomy, job demands and/or job resources, social support, and supervision (Bakker, Demerouti, & Euwema, 2005; Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1995; Leiter, Gascón, & Martinez-Jarreta, 2010; Shanafelt et al, 2015).…”