Systemic and organizational changes are vital to help healthcare workers manage stress and burnout, but workers also are looking for programs to help them develop individual resilience. An online, self-guided program increased positive emotions in healthcare workers, a new study reports.
Researchers enrolled 554 healthcare workers in a five-week program aimed at targeting positive emotions to combat burnout. They studied the Positive Affect Regulation sKills (PARK) program in healthcare workers at 10 hospitals, 18 immediate care centers and 325 outpatient practices in the Chicago area during the COVID-19 pandemic. Workers were randomly assigned to get the intervention right away or after a 12-week span. Researchers measured changes in their emotional well-being, sleep and feelings of burnout. The study was published in PLOS ONE on Monday.
People in the trial, which began in 2022, reported higher burnout, poorer emotional well-being and poorer sleep when the trial started compared to those who didn’t undergo the intervention. People who participated in the program right away had better anxiety compared to those who waited 12 weeks to start. None of the other well-being outcomes (well-being, sleep, burnout) changed significantly in the intervention group compared to the waitlist. Participants who finished all five weekly online lessons — just 9.4% of the group — had improvements in outcomes compared to those who didn’t complete the program.
The researchers experienced a few obstacles: Just 57% of the workers completed at least one lesson of the program, so a lot of participants didn’t take advantage of it. The team noted that participation rates in stress-reduction and wellbeing programs is generally low among healthcare workers, even if they’re made to be brief.
“Results of our randomized waitlist-controlled trial indicate that PARK can be effective in those with a high mental health need and future work will focus on adaptations to increase engagement and tailor PARK for healthcare workers who could most benefit,” the authors wrote.
