A Randomized Controlled Evaluation of a Compassion-course for Healthcare Professionals
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Internet-based compassion course for stress managemant, General Internet-based cognitive behavioural course for stress management.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Psychological Stress, Compassion, Occupational Health, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Basic parameters: from 20 years · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- Sweden
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
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Official title
A Randomized Controlled Evaluation of a Compassion-course With the Aim of Reducing Stress of Conscience and Work-related Stress and Increase Levels of Professional Quality of Life and Self-compassion in Healthcare Professionals
Overview
The aim is to investigate whether an internet-based compassion course of five modules contributes to reducing stress of conscience and work-related stress, increase the experience of professional quality of life and self-compassion in healthcare professionals.
Detailed description
Reactions to severe stress is one of the most common causes of sick leave in Sweden. Previous research has shown that compassion interventions for staff can affect work-related stress by increased self-care, better self-awareness and an increased healthy attitude, however, Swedish studies on the subject are scarce.
Compassion is a motivation to reduce suffering in oneself and others characterized by a warm, understanding, and respectful attitude. In addition to beneficial effects for the staff, a compassion-oriented approach, has shown to improve the relationship between patient and staff, increase patient satisfaction with care and reduce patient anxiety and stress. As a result of the covid-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals have been exposed to difficult physical and mental work conditions that cause feelings of stress and inadequacy. In the long run, increased stress can cause fatigue and increased number of sick leaves. This can in turn contribute to increased stress for the staff who remain working and difficulties to recruit new staff, which make the situation worse. There is a lack of interventions for staff aimed at preventing stress-related health issues, enabling recovery and reduce mental suffering linked to a stressful work situations. The aim of this study is to find a method that help healthcare providers cope with stress of conscience in relation to stressful work situations, particularly during the current covid-19 pandemic. A five week internet-based compassion course of five modules will be conducted and evaluated with the aim of exploring whether the course contributes to reduce stress of conscience and work-related stress, and increases the levels of professional quality of life and self-compassion among healthcare professionals. The internet-based compassion course will be compared with: one group that is on a waiting list for ten weeks and then receives an internet-based general stress management course and one group that participate in the general stress management course.
Interventions
- Behavioral Internet-based compassion course for stress managemant
A five week long, structured self-help program with weekly reports to, and feedback from a compassion-focused (CFT) therapist over the Internet. Includes traditional CFT-methods for stress-related problems. - Behavioral General Internet-based cognitive behavioural course for stress management
A five week long, structured self-help program with weekly reports to, and feedback from a cognitive-behavioral (CBT) therapist over the Internet. Includes traditional CBT-methods for stress-related problems.
Primary outcome measures
- Change (from baseline) in Stress of conscience [Time frame: 0, 5, 10 and 15 weeks and 6 months after baseline]
Secondary outcome measures (3)
- Change (from baseline) in Professional quality of life [Time frame: 0, 5, 10 and 15 weeks and 6 months after baseline]
- Change (from baseline) in Work-related stress [Time frame: 0, 5, 10 and 15 weeks and 6 months after baseline]
- Change (from baseline) in Self-compassion [Time frame: 0, 5, 10 and 15 weeks and 6 months after baseline]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
The inclusion criteria will be as follows: the participants work directly with patients full-time or part-time, score 45 points or higher on the primary outcome measure Stress of Conscience Questionnaire (SCQ), are proficient in Swedish, have the requisite time to attend a digital course, and accept the course's format.
The exclusion criteria include being partially or fully on sick leave due to stress.
All criteria are assessed on the basis of self-assessment forms of the participants, but in case of uncertainty, follow-up questions can be done by phone.
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: Yes
Study design
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Model
- Parallel assignment
- Masking
- Single blind
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
Study locations
Sweden · 1 center
- Linnaeus University, Department of Psychology — Vaxjo
Identifiers
NCT: NCT04700878 · 2020-05505