Study protocol for evaluating the efficacy of Mindfulness for Health Professionals Building Resilience and Compassion program: a randomized, waiting-list controlled trial

要旨

Background: Perceived stress and burnout are common among medical professionals and have significant clinical impacts. The authors developed a group program to cultivate medical professionals’ mindfulness and compassion, thereby alleviating their perceived stress and burnout. This program, which is called the Mindfulness for health professionals building resilience and compassion program (MaHALO program), comprises a 2-day weekend workshop and 2 half-day follow-up sessions. The objective of this manuscript is to describe the study protocol for a randomized waiting-list control study to examine the effectiveness of the MaHALO program. Methods: The study setting is an academic institution in Japan. We will recruit 70 medical professionals who engage in cancer care or palliative care. They will be randomized (1:1) with a block size of 4 without stratification to the intervention group (MaHALO group) or the control group (wait-list group). The primary outcome is perceived stress, measured with the Perceived Stress Scale. Secondary outcomes are burnout, mood state, subjective wellbeing, resilience, compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue, health-related quality of life, self-compassion, mindfulness skills, perceived interoceptive awareness, work performance, and perceived medical errors. The assessments will be conducted at baseline and at 4th, 8th, and 12th week. This study was approved by the ethical review board of Keio University School of Medicine and was registered in the Japanese Clinical Trial Registry (registry ID: UMIN000031435). Conclusion: The MaHALO program may have the potential to cultivate medical professionals’ mindfulness and compassion, which can contribute to alleviation of psychological distress and burnout of medical professionals.

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