Resource Library

This study aimed to use a coach-led digital health platform to mitigate burnout and enhance wellbeing among hospital workers. Individual interviews were conducted with 11 healthcare workers to explore their experiences of working with a coach through text-based communication on a digital support platform. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. Three overarching themes were identified: (1) Human-centred Conversation, Facilitated Awareness, (2) Learning and Growth, (3) Forward Momentum in the pillars of Lifestyle Medicine. Participants had a positive human-centered connection with their coach and felt safe to communicate openly with her via online chat messages. The coach facilitated participants’ awareness, learning and growth by helping them to identify the goals they wanted to achieve. Participants experienced forward momentum in the pillars of Lifestyle Medicine, including sleep, relationships, meaning and purpose in life, exercise, eating well, along with reduced loneliness and burnout. This study found that participants can experience an inherently human-centred connection through text-based communication with an online coach. There were some limits to this connection, including individual preferences and beliefs in relation to the digital means of communication. Participants felt connected to their coach and experienced benefits that extended beyond achieving individual goals to improving their lifestyle and wellbeing.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing stressors and created additional challenges for healthcare workers, such as increased workload, rapidly changing policies and procedures, resource and workforce shortages and work-life imbalance. This study examined what frontline healthcare workers consider to be the organisational strategies needed to support their mental health and wellbeing during crisis events. METHODS: The Australian COVID-19 Frontline Health Workers Survey, a national, anonymous online survey of HCWs, was conducted between August-October 2020, during the second wave of the Australian COVID-19 outbreak. Drawing on participant responses collected as part of this survey, we analysed thematically the free-text question, ‘What strategies might be helpful to assist frontline healthcare workers during future crisis events like pandemics, disasters, etc.?’ RESULTS: A total of 5527 healthcare workers responded to the free-text question asking about support strategies for future crises. Findings highlighted the challenges experienced by frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and outlined suggestions for organisational strategies to support the mental health of the health workforce long-term. Specifically, four key themes that linked organisational support strategies to organisational culture were identified. These were: Workplace structures to support a mentally healthy work environment; Supportive leadership and management; Strengthening a sense of community to support mental health; and Organisational culture normalising mental health support. CONCLUSIONS: The key message from this research is that organisational strategies that enact a supportive work culture, rather than a focus on individuals alone, are required to protect the mental health of healthcare workers in the future.

BACKGROUND: There is little research providing critical understanding of how healthcare professionals perceive and manage work-related stress. This study aims to understand healthcare workers’ perspectives regarding work-related stress and burnout, strategies and barriers for self-care, and organizational support for self-care and resiliency. METHODS: A qualitative descriptive approach was used. Individual, semi-structured interviews were conducted with healthcare workers from 5 organizations in New York State. Data was analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s Thematic Analysis. RESULTS: Interviews were conducted with 27 healthcare workers from various disciplines. Findings indicated that healthcare workers experienced high levels of stress and burnout, which negatively impacts their mental health, quality of work, relationships with coworkers, and patient care. Many participants expressed an interest in self-care activities, and there were apparent differences among respondents regarding perceived organizational support. Five themes were identified, including: staff shortages, coworker conflict and interactions, strategies to mitigate stress, impacts of work-related stress, and managing stress and burnout in the workplace. CONCLUSION: Workplace stress affects patient care, but workers feel that there is limited support from leadership. It is critical that healthcare organizations and governments prioritize providing support along with other resources to healthcare workers to address burnout and assist with mental health concerns.

Maladaptive responses to stressors are ingrained in our profession, but we can unlearn them and embrace a culture of well-being.

Improving professional wellbeing for all healthcare workers is key to the success of hospitals and healthcare systems. Benefits range from boosting staff morale to ensuring a safe and supportive work environment for both healthcare workers and patients.

To help hospital leaders make meaningful changes to improve professional wellbeing, NIOSH and the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation designed the Impact Wellbeing Guide: Taking Action to Improve Healthcare Worker Wellbeing. The Guide is designed to help hospital leaders and executives accelerate or supplement professional wellbeing work in their hospitals at the operational level.

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Establishing Commitment & Shared Governance (Organizational Infrastructure for Well-Being).

BACKGROUND: Burnout in health care workers (HCWs) has serious ramifications for individual well-being, patients, organizations, and health systems. Global evidence demonstrates the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the risk of burnout. Scalable interventions to address burnout are critical to protect HCW well-being. PURPOSE: Underpinned by the Conservation of Resources theory, this study examines the impacts of a statewide improvement initiative (the Initiative), using the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Joy in Work (JiW) Framework, to reduce burnout and increase joy at work across participating health care organizations in Victoria, Australia. METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: An impact evaluation was undertaken utilizing a mixed-methods design. Quantitative outcomes included burnout and joy at work measured using an adapted Mini Z tool. In-depth interviews with implementation teams sought insights into the effectiveness of interventions. RESULTS: Overall, 20 teams from 17 organizations across diverse health care settings and geographical locations participated. At a statewide level, outcomes in burnout and joy at work were inconclusive due to limited data. However, five out of eight teams reporting sufficient data achieved measurable improvements in one or more outcomes. Qualitative data revealed the Initiative increased workplace resources and supports such as providing “permission” for HCWs to prioritize well-being at work, improved communications between management and HCWs, and increased HCWs' teamwork and camaraderie, resulting in safer and more positive workplaces. CONCLUSION AND PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: The JiW Framework, implemented across diverse settings, provided organizations with a structured process to develop multifaceted improvements that resulted in enhanced resources that appeared to improve HCW well-being. Compared to individual well-being support, this approach offers organization-level change and scalability potential.

The Center for Workplace Mental Health (CWMH), a program of the American Psychiatric Association Foundation, provides employers with high-impact tools, resources, and training to effectively address the mental health and well-being of employees and their families and provides actionable steps to creating a mentally healthy workplace. Through the Brave of Heart Fund, the Center created the initiative, Frontline Connect: Mental Health for the Healthcare Workforce. Frontline Connect is focused on improving access to mental health care for frontline clinicians. Through convenings, roundtable discussions, and interviews with expert leaders from hospitals, health systems, and like-minded organizations, this multimedia toolkit, which includes a video library, highlights best practices and innovative strategies that have led to an increase in access to mental health care for nationally recognized institutions.

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Ensuring Physical & Mental Health (Mental Health).

A thriving health care workforce promotes health in people and communities.

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Measurement & Accountability AND Actionable Strategies for Government: Advancing Measurement & Accountability (Measure Well-Being).

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INTRODUCTION: There is generally a concerning likelihood of burnout in healthcare workers. Given the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare workers, our institution identified the need for wellness interventions to foster adaptive functioning and mitigate burnout. The purpose of this pilot project was to assess the feasibility of virtual holistic interventions like meditation, art, laughter therapy and dance and their impact on overall well-being of physicians and advanced practice providers (APPs). METHODS: A series of 12 virtual sessions (art therapy, dance therapy, mindfulness-based practices/meditation and laughter therapy) were offered to providers over a 6-month period. Participants completed an online survey reporting stress levels on Likert scale 0-10 after each session. These sessions followed an open group format. Data obtained were analyzed using mixed methods. RESULTS: A total of 72 participants attended the sessions (mean: 6, range 2-12), and 40% (29) completed the surveys. Most respondents were white (62%), female (90%) and physicians (69%, with 31% APPs). More than half worked in specialty services (66%), with the rest in primary care (34%). 41% were above the age of 60. Approximately 93% reported statically significant reduction in stress level following the intervention period (pre mean score: 6.3 versus post mean score 2.4, p < .0001). Comments indicated post-intervention stress reduction and relaxation. Subjects appreciated the program and enjoyed the sessions. Some participants felt a sense of accomplishment and connectedness. CONCLUSION: This virtual program was well received by the providers, who demonstrated significant, immediate stress reduction and reported feeling relaxed after the sessions. These preliminary data are encouraging and point toward the feasibility of holistic approaches to support overall provider well-being. Larger, multi-centered comparative studies should evaluate the impact of different well-being activities, with attention to improving engagement.

Burnout is a public health crisis that persists at the expense of clinician well-being, the healthcare workforce, and the quality of care provided. Clinician well-being is a professional imperative, yet nursing students still report higher levels of burnout than non-nursing students. Cultivating an academic learning environment that supports the development of resiliency, well-being, and improved student mental health requires a coordinated and sustained effort from nurse educators and academic leaders. This article aims to inspire nurse educators to take the first or next steps toward integrating wellness into nursing curricula. The ten dimensions of wellness provide a framework for wellness programming. Practical strategies aligned with each dimension are offered. As an exemplar, the Banding Together for Wellness program is summarized, including innovative incentives for student participation. Over the past five years, 426 (approximately 54 %) undergraduate nursing students voluntarily completed the program. While best practices may vary by institution, the strategies and resources offered herein can support nurse educators in the classroom, lab, and clinical setting as we all work to foster personal and professional well-being in nursing students. Nurse educators can be instrumental in cultivating the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for life-long self-care, well-being, and nursing practice.

In response to COVID-19, hospitals in the United States put rigorous risk-reduction measures into place, including strict no-visitor policies. The resulting patient isolation has had negative effects on the mental health and wellbeing of healthcare providers and patients. We argue that COVID-19 risk assessments failed to consider the long-term effects of isolation on the health and wellbeing of patients and healthcare providers. These findings have implications for understanding the ongoing impact of COVID-19 care on healthcare providers, and for thinking about risk mitigation strategies for current and future healthcare provision and pandemic response preparation and planning. The isolation of COVID-19 took a toll on the mental health and wellbeing of both patients and healthcare providers. Restrictive visitor policies were especially harmful for healthcare providers and families. Policy makers – from the CDC to hospitals systems and administrators – must consider the harmful effects of isolation when assessing risk and considering risk reduction measures. A medical anthropologist and emergency medicine physician collaborate on research on the devastating long-term effects of isolation for healthcare providers and patients during COVID-19.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that health care employers have faced increased difficulty recruiting and retaining staff in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Empirical research is needed to understand the magnitude and persistence of these changes, and whether they have disproportionate implications for certain types of workers or regions of the country.To quantify the number of workers exiting from and entering into the health care workforce before and after the pandemic and to examine variations over time and across states and worker demographics.This cohort study used US Census Bureau state unemployment insurance data on job-to-job flows in the continental US to construct state-level quarterly exit and entry rates for the health care industry from January 2018 through December 2021 (Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee were omitted due to missing data). An event study design was used to compute quarterly mean adjusted rates of job exit from and entry into the health care sector as defined by the North American Industry Classification System. Data were examined from January to June 2023.The COVID-19 pandemic.The main outcomes were the mean adjusted health care worker exit and entry rates in each quarter by state and by worker demographics (age, gender, race and ethnicity, and education level).In quarter 1 of 2020, there were approximately 18.8 million people (14.6 million females [77.6%]) working in the health care sector in our sample. The exit rate for health care workers increased at the onset of the pandemic, from a baseline quarterly mean of 5.9 percentage points in 2018 to 8.0 (95% CI, 7.7-8.3) percentage points in quarter 1 of 2020. Exit rates remained higher than baseline levels through quarter 4 of 2021, when the health care exit rate was 7.7 (95% CI, 7.4-7.9) percentage points higher than the 2018 baseline. In quarter 1 of 2020, the increase in health care worker exit rates was dominated by an increase in workers exiting to nonemployment (78% increase compared with baseline); in contrast, by quarter 4 of 2021, the exit rate was dominated by workers exiting to employment in non–health care sectors (38% increase compared with baseline). Entry rates into health care also increased in the postpandemic period, from 6.2 percentage points at baseline to 7.7 percentage points (95% CI, 7.4-7.9 percentage points) in the last quarter of 2021, suggesting increased turnover of health care staff. Compared with prepandemic job flows, the share of workers exiting health care after the pandemic who were female was disproportionately larger, and the shares of workers entering health care who were female or Black was disproportionately smaller.Results of this cohort study suggest a substantial and persistent increase in health care workforce turnover after the pandemic, which may have long-lasting implications for workers’ willingness to remain in health care jobs. Policymakers and health care organizations may need to act to prevent further losses of experienced staff.

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Establishing Commitment & Shared Governance (Shared Governance).

OBJECTIVES: Evidence has shown significant impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on physicians. We hypothesized that these effects would impact surgical and non-surgical resident education differently, with non-surgical specialties being more heavily impacted by frontline work and surgical specialties losing elective cases. METHODS: We examined well-being and burnout among resident physicians in surgical and non-surgical specialties during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic using the Mayo Physician Well-Being Index (WBI). RESULTS: Completed surveys were received from 110 residents, 55% of whom were in a surgical training program. 35% of respondents were identified as ‘at risk’ for burnout. Increased demands from work (adj. OR 3.79, 95% CI 1.50, 9.59, p = 0.005) was associated with an increased likelihood for being ‘at risk’ compared to those without increased demands. Odds of having increased stress level were higher amongst residents with fear/anxiety of the unknown (adj. OR 4.21, 95% CI 1.63, 10.90, p = 0.003) and more demands outside work (adj. OR 10.54, 95% CI 2.63, 42.16, p = 0.001) but lower amongst residents with more time for studying (OR 0.23, 95% CI 0.09, 0.64, p = 0.005). Risk for burnout was not significantly different between surgical and non-surgical specialties when adjusting for increased demands from work (adj. OR 1.43, 95% CI 0.60, 3.37, p = 0.0.418). CONCLUSION: Perceived effects of the COVID-19 pandemic upon residents’ educational experience was mixed: reduced clinical volume had a negative impact, while increased time for study was perceived favorably. These findings suggest potential strategies and targets to mitigate the stress and burnout of a future crisis, whether large or small, among surgical and non-surgical trainees.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that all emergencies, major incidents and disease outbreaks can have substantial mental health consequences, and it has demonstrated the proven need for additional care for populations in the wake of disasters. This book brings together practice and recent developments in pre-hospital emergency care, emergency medicine and major trauma care with the wellbeing, psychosocial and mental health aspects of preparing for and responding to emergencies, incidents, terrorism, disasters, epidemics, and pandemics. Practical suggestions are included for future planning to provide better care for people caught up in emergencies. Setting it apart from other books on emergency preparedness is its specific focus on the psychosocial demands imposed on staff of healthcare and responding services. Featuring expert contributions from a wide variety of disciplines, this book appeals to people working within mental healthcare, emergency care, pre-hospital medicine, Blue Light services, public health, humanitarian care, emergency planning, and disaster management.

Background Moral distress (MD) and moral injury (MI) are related constructs describing the negative consequences of morally challenging stressors. Despite growing support for the clinical relevance of these constructs, ongoing challenges regarding measurement quality risk limiting research and clinical advances. This study summarizes the nature, quality, and utility of existing MD and MI scales, and provides recommendations for future use. Method We identified psychometric studies describing the development or validation of MD or MI scales and extracted information on methodological and psychometric qualities. Content analyses identified specific outcomes measured by each scale. Results We reviewed 77 studies representing 42 unique scales. The quality of psychometric approaches varied greatly across studies, and most failed to examine convergent and divergent validity. Content analyses indicated most scales measure exposures to potential moral stressors and outcomes together, with relatively few measuring only exposures (n = 3) or outcomes (n = 7). Scales using the term MD typically assess general distress. Scales using the term MI typically assess several specific outcomes. Conclusions Results show how the terms MD and MI are applied in research. Several scales were identified as appropriate for research and clinical use. Recommendations for the application, development, and validation of MD and MI scales are provided.

[This is an excerpt.] Burnout is associated with depression and attrition in the physician workforce. Recent studies have found that Asian, Black, and Hispanic students and students with disabilities experience increased risks of burnout.1,2 However, little is known about the risk of burnout among racial and ethnic underrepresented students with a disability, or among students who have cooccurring disabilities. Here, we examined the prevalence of burnout among students underrepresented in medicine by race and ethnicity (URiM; American Indian or Alaska Native, Black, Hawaiian Native, Hispanic, Pacific Islanders) with multiple disability types. [To read more, click View Resource.]

[This is an excerpt.] The term “microaggression” was coined by psychiatrist Chester Pierce, MD, in 1970 and was further developed and popularized by psychologist Derald Sue, PhD, in 2007. Microaggressions are “brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership.” There are three types of microaggressions: microassaults, microinsults, and microinvalidations. Microassaults are conscious and deliberate actions or slurs against marginalized groups and most closely resemble blatant discrimination. For example, a senior resident might ask an intern: “Why can't you people ever listen?” In contrast, microinsults and microinvalidations are subtle and thought to be unconscious. Microinsults are verbal and nonverbal communications characterized as being insensitive, rude, and demeaning to a person's identity. A microinsult might include: “Are you a real doctor? You look like a child!” Microinvalidations are communications that exclude, negate, and/or nullify a person's experience as a person of color. One example might be to promote “All Lives Matter” (during the ”Black Lives Matter” movement). Though race/ethnicity is often considered the target of microaggressions, they can also be aimed at a person's gender, sexual orientation, religion, or other marginalized status. All microaggressions are particularly harmful in medicine and can interfere with patient care and the professional interactions and development of resident physicians. [To read more, click View Resource.]

[This is an excerpt.] The multiple challenges facing the current nursing workforce should concern anyone in need of healthcare – in other words, everyone. Nurses play an essential role in helping people live their healthiest lives, addressing the root causes of poor health, and managing teams that bring together clinical care, public health, and social services. They are often the first and most frequent line of contact for patients and families entering the healthcare system. National surveys have revealed nurses as the most trusted professionals. However, as the United States emerges from the prolonged impact of the COVID-19 pandemic [2020-2023], the U.S. healthcare system faces a severe shortage of nurses to meet the health needs of the population, while the stresses of the pandemic have led many nurses to consider changing roles away from patient care or even changing professions. [To read more, click View Resource.]

INTRODUCTION: Healthcare clinicians are often at risk of psychological distress due to the nature of their occupation. Military healthcare providers are at risk for additional psychological suffering related to unique moral and ethical situations encountered in military service. This scoping review identifies key characteristics of moral distress and moral injury and how these concepts relate to the military healthcare clinician who is both a care provider and service member. METHODS: A scoping review of moral distress and moral injury literature as relates to the military healthcare clinician was conducted on the basis of the Joanna Briggs Institute scoping review framework. Databases searched included CINAHL, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), PsycInfo, 2 U.S. Defense Department sources, conference papers index, and dissertation abstracts. Reference lists of all identified reports and articles were searched for additional studies. RESULTS: A total of 573 articles, published between the years 2009 and 2021, were retrieved to include a portion of the COVID-19 pandemic period. One hundred articles met the inclusion criteria for the final full-text review and analysis. DISCUSSION: This scoping review identified moral distress and moral injury literature to examine similarities, differences, and overlaps in the defining characteristics of the concepts and the associated implications for patients, healthcare clinicians, and organizations. This review included the unfolding influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on moral experiences in health care and the blurring of those lines between civilian and military healthcare clinicians. Future directions of moral injury and moral distress research, practice, and care are discussed.