Mindfulness Based Self Care Toolkit for Psychiatric Healthcare Staff
Abstract
Abstract
Background: Healthcare professionals (HCPs) are at high risk of stress, burnout, and compassion fatigue (CF). Nearly half of the doctors and one-third of the nurses experience burnout in the United States. The risk becomes more evident during the coronavirus disease (COVID -19) pandemic as more patients and healthcare providers seek mental health services.
Problem: The physical and mental health of HCPs is impacted by burnout and CF, leading to increased practice errors, decreased patient safety, and negative effects on HCPs’ physical and mental health. Mindfulness practice is beneficial to reduce stress and burnout in various populations, but HCPs have poor knowledge about mindfulness and its benefits. Also, Mindfulness-based self-care measures are not promoted in HCPs.
Context: The staff at the psychiatric hospital (mental health technicians, nurses, case managers, psychiatrists) who are at high risk of BO, CF, and stress would be educated about mindfulness-based self-care strategies by a toolkit. The needed support from stakeholders at the hospital is acquired by various stakeholder management strategies.
Proposed Interventions: A mindfulness-based self-care toolkit and a training session about various mindfulness strategies would be implemented. Other resources like flyers, mindfulness themes in units, and cheer-up sessions for staff would be implemented to encourage them to practice mindfulness.
Proposed Outcome Measures: Staff’s knowledge about mindfulness, use of mindfulness as a means of self-care, and ease of use of the toolkit would be measured by a post-intervention questionnaire.
