Background: Burnout among healthcare professionals providing palliative care ranges from 3% to 66%. Promoting the wellbeing and mental health of nursing staff working in palliative care settings and across chronic diseases is a priority to ensure that therapeutic relationships with patients can be maintained. Traditional 8-week mindfulness-based programmes have been used to improve mental health and well-being in healthcare staff but shortened versions that might be more accessible to busy professionals need exploration. There is a lack of evidence assessing the effectiveness of shortened mindfulness based programmes for staff providing palliative care and there are no randomised controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating effectiveness.
Methods: The aims of this study are to establish the feasibility of an RCT of a shortened Mindful Resilience programme for palliative care staff through a randomised pilot study, explore the acceptability of the intervention with a process evaluation. The study will have two phases. The first phase consists of a randomised pilot study to establish recruitment, participation and retention rates. This will involve the recruitment of 40 participants who will be randomly allocated to the experimental or control group. The second phase will be a qualitative process evaluation to establish the acceptability of the intervention within a clinical setting. This will involve semi-structured interviews with 10 palliative care staff.
Discussion: Mindfulness-based interventions have been shown to improve well-being and mental health in healthcare settings, but there is a lack of evidence evaluating shortened programmes for palliative care staff across all chronic diseases. The hope is this study will inform a trial that can influence future healthcare policy by providing robust evidence for a shortened Mindful Resilience programme within the palliative care setting.
If you are interested in applying for this study you must have a regular mindfulness practice and have engaged in meditation.
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