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Received: 4 April 2020 Revised: 3 September 2020 Accepted: 4 September 2020

DOI: 10.1111/nicc.12552

QUALITY IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVES-


SERVICE IMPROVEMENT

An evaluation of a mindfulness-based stress reduction


intervention for critical care nursing staff: A quality
improvement project

Neil Anderson

Matron in Critical Care and Critical Care


Outreach, Bart's Health NHS Trust, Abstract
London, UK Background: Critical care is a stressful workplace for nursing staff. Mindfulness-
Correspondence based stress reduction programmes are an emerging concept to manage stress in
Neil Anderson, Adult Critical Care Unit, nursing, but little is known about the impact of such interventions, especially in criti-
Ward 6A. St Bartholomew's Hospital,
West Smithfield, London EC1A 7BE, UK. cal care settings.
Email: neil.anderson7@nhs.net Aims and objectives: A quality improvement initiative was introduced to explore the
effects of a mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention on a cohort of critical
care nurses in terms of quality of life, perceived stress, mindfulness awareness, and
sickness and absence rates.
Methods: A pre-/post-interventional design recruited nurses (n = 25) working within
a critical care unit to undertake the intervention. Participants were asked to complete
psychometric questionnaires at three time points, pre-course (0 months), immediately
post-course (8 weeks), and at a follow-up point at month 4. Sickness and absence
rates were analysed to detect differences pre- and post-course. Retention rates were
ascertained by numbers of participants completing the psychometric tests.
Findings: Overall, positive correlations were found when comparing pre-course vs
8-week mean scores of satisfaction with life (P < .001), reduced perceived stress
(P < .001), and mindfulness awareness (P = .002). Bootstrap analysis of the data con-
firmed that positive outcome measures were more significant at the 4-month mark in
reduced perceived stress and mindfulness awareness (P < .001) compared with the
satisfaction with life scale (P = .41). There was no significant change in sickness rates
pre- and post-intervention (P = .69). The retention rate was 70% at month 4.
Conclusions and recommendations: Mindfulness training is a feasible and accepted
intervention that critical care nurses may benefit from in terms of quality of life,
perceived stress, and mindfulness awareness. This has positive outcomes for staff
and patients.

KEYWORDS

caring, critical care, nursing, intensive care nurse, mindfulness, well-being

Nurs Crit Care. 2020;1–8. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/nicc © 2020 British Association of Critical Care Nurses 1
2 ANDERSON

1 | I N T RO DU CT I O N A N D B A CK GR O U N D
What is known about this topic
National Health Service (NHS) workers have declared that they expe-
rience significant stress in the workplace, with 56% describing work
• The adult critical care unit is acknowledged to be a stress-
as stressful.1 The NHS Staff Survey results2 show that 38% of NHS
ful workplace for nurses, with exposure to patient deaths,
staff reported work-related stress. Stress leads to ill health, potentially
cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and conflict named stress
contributing to the professional group of nursing staff having the sec-
contributors.
ond highest sickness rates in the NHS of 5.78%.3
• Mindfulness practice is an alternative approach for nurs-
The adult critical care unit (ACCU) is acknowledged to be a stress-
ing leaders to address nursing stress and burnout.
ful workplace for nurses, with exposure to patient deaths, cardiopul-
• Mindfulness-based stress reduction training may reduce
monary resuscitation, and conflict named stress contributors.4
stress, enhance mindfulness awareness, and improve
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training enables nurses
health and well-being in a wide population of nursing
to adapt their behaviour by responding rather than reacting to stress-
staff, including critical care nurses.
ful situations, enhancing self-care, and subsequently improving clinical
outcomes in critical care patients.5
What this paper adds
Stress, anxiety, and depression are key factors that impact sick-
ness rates in nursing. Data from the Office for National Statistics
determined that stress and depression accounted for 7.3% of NHS • This study demonstrated that satisfaction with life, per-
6
sickness absences in 2016 and that nurses were the second highest ceived stress, and mindful attention awareness scores
professional group contributing to sickness absence. There is no clear were all significantly improved in a cohort of critical care
consensus in the literature that MBSR training may reduce sickness nurses immediately following an 8-week mindfulness-
and absence in nursing staff. based stress reduction programme.
• Scores for perceived stress and mindful attention aware-
ness also significantly improved at month 4, demonstrat-
1.1 | Rationale ing longevity of positive effects.
• An 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction pro-
Mindfulness training in nursing is an emerging concept, and nurses gramme had no impact or influence on sickness and
7
have limited access to such programmes. The effects of mindfulness absence rates in critical care nursing staff.
8
training in health care workers are currently unknown. Therefore, an
8-week MBSR course for nurses was introduced to a large Central
London ACCU in October 2018. 1.3 | Aim

The purpose of this study is to evaluate an MBSR course as a quality


1.2 | Setting improvement project in ACCU. Effectiveness of the course was
analysed using quantitative data to draw conclusions. Quantitative psy-
This study was conducted in a Central London NHS Trust. The ACCU chometric test data were gathered and analysed in terms of general
consists of 54 beds, over four units, and specializes in cardiothoracic health and well-being, perceived stress, and mindful awareness of the
surgery, cardiology, advanced cardiac support including extracorporeal participants at three time points: pre-course, immediately post-course,
membrane oxygenation (ECMO), and oncology. The service runs and at a follow-up point at month 4. Sickness rates were analysed over
24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and nursing staff are required to work a 6-month period pre- and post-course during identical months.
12.5-hour night or day shifts. At the time of writing, the vacancy rate This study tested the following hypothesis:
within the ACCU was significant at 17%, employee turnover was 4%, There will be a significant improvement in quality of life, perceived
and the sickness rate varies week by week at between 2% and 8%. stress, and mindfulness awareness scores and a reduction in sickness
The ACCU has the capacity to employ up to 260 full time-equivalent and absence rates for nurses undertaking an 8-week MBSR course.
registered nursing staff, with most rotating between the four units in
teams. One of these units specializes in cardiology, including out-of-
hospital cardiac arrests, ECMO, and oncology. Because of the com- 2 | METHODS
plexities and high acuity of patients seen within this service, an
expected higher than UK national average mortality rate in ACCU of 2.1 | Intervention
38% is noted. Nurses have expressed the emotional toll of exposure
to death on a regular basis during debriefs and team meetings and Following recommended Good Practice Guidelines from the UK
have described working on the ACCU as stressful. Mindfulness Network,9 a trained Zenways Zen meditation teacher
ANDERSON 3

conducted an 8-week MBSR programme. The mindfulness teacher PSS is superior to the 14-item version, reporting a coefficient value of
was self-employed and had 3 years of mindfulness teaching experi- >0.70 in all cases with the 10-item PSS.
ence and had experience providing mindfulness training in NHS and The MAAS is one of the most popular measures of mindful-
private organizations. The mindfulness teacher facilitated the course ness ability, demonstrating efficacy of mindfulness-based interven-
using the MBSR programme, originally developed in 1979 by Kabat- tion outcomes.17 MacKillop and Anderson18 ascertained that
Zinn,10 to run an adapted course for ACCU nurses. mindfulness ability as measured on the MAAS is not related to
The MBSR programme aimed to provide nurses with an in-depth gender, supporting its validity. The candidates in this study were
and practical introduction to mindfulness. The course commenced asked to reverse score the scale in half of the questions to prevent
with a 2-hour group face-to-face training session, followed by intentional attention or awareness of mindfulness. Ruiz et al19
6 weeks of online mindfulness training. For the online training, a analysed the results of MAAS in undergraduates and found excel-
YouTube video link was sent to each participant's email address lent internal consistency (α = .92) and demonstrated theoretically
weekly. This video was not public and was only available to the coherent correlations with the MAAS and negative thoughts, emo-
enrolled group and could be accessed 24/7 at a time that was conve- tional symptoms, and life satisfaction, thus supporting reliability.
nient. Homework instructions were provided after each online session Therefore, the MAAS seems to be a reliable and valid measure of
with mindfulness exercises and techniques to practice. To close the mindfulness.
course, a final face-to-face session was delivered with further medita- Sickness rates within all staff are monitored in the ACCU and
tion practice, advice on continuity of MBSR activities, and evaluations. are recorded on an electronic rota system. The system records the
Participants were asked to sign a register for the face-to-face sessions number of episodes, days, and hours of sickness unavailability that
and record when they accessed the online sessions. each nurse takes. Sickness and absence rates were monitored for
6 months pre-course and the 6-month period immediately post-
course to determine any interventional influences. Rates of sickness
2.2 | Study of the intervention absence among NHS workers vary at different times of the year,
with higher sickness reported during the winter months.6 Therefore,
Quantitative data on satisfaction with life scale (SWLS), perceived to avoid any seasonal influence on the analysed sickness scores, the
stress scale (PSS), and mindful attention awareness scale (MAAS) were 6 months monitored pre-course were matched with the exact
collected at three time points: pre-intervention (0-months), immedi- months post-course (January to June) rather than the immediate
ately post-intervention (8-weeks) and 4 months post-intervention pre-course period. Only problematic intermittent short-term sick-
using a questionnaire. The mindfulness teacher used these tools to ness and chronic sickness were used in this study. Any pregnancy-
evaluate the effectiveness of all MBSR courses that are facilitated. An related sickness was excluded.
agreement was made to disclose the results of the questionnaires to
aid the quality improvement project. The questionnaires were com-
pleted anonymously. No additional psychometric tests were com- 2.4 | Analysis
pleted for the purpose of this project. Retention rates were
ascertained by the number of participants completing the psychomet- The distribution of SWLS, PSS, and MAAS was assessed using a histo-
ric tests at month 4. gram with a normal curve imposed. Data were summarized using the
mean and SD. SPSS MIXED was used to fit mixed models with ran-
dom effects (intercepts) and to account for correlation between mea-
2.3 | Measures surements collected on the same individual. Paired comparisons
between time points were conducted using the Bonferroni procedure.
The SWLS is a short 5-item questionnaire used to assess global cogni- The histograms for SWLS, PSS, and MAAS were not always symmetric
tive function in terms of overall satisfaction with life initially devel- with regard to the mean. To address this issue, an equivalent model
oped by Diener et al.11 Pavot et al,12 report that the SWLS had a was fitted using the Stata longitudinal panel regression procedure
satisfactory level of test-retest reliability and high internal consistency xtreg with 1000 bootstrap samples (ie, the model was fitted 1000
after reviewing multiple studies in a systematic review. times to multiple samples of the data drawn with replacement). The
One of the most popular tools for measuring psychological stress findings from both approaches were similar and did not impact the
is the PSS.13 Across diverse populations, the 10- and 14-item PSS main findings. The data were analysed using SPSS20 version 25.0 and
13-16 15
generate satisfactory levels of reliability. Khalili et al describes Stata version 15.
that the face validity and scale content of the PSS were pronounced The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to test whether there
with a Kaser-Meyer-Olkin coefficient of 0.82 and Bartlett's test yield- were significant differences pre- and post-intervention in average
ing 0.327, demonstrating statistical significance (P < .0001). Therefore, hours of sick leave among the participating group. The probability
the PSS is useful to screen and assess levels of perceived stress. This threshold of P = .05 (type I error) was used to reject the null hypothe-
study used the 10-item PSS, and Lee13 concluded that the 10-item sis for all statistical tests.
4 ANDERSON

2.5 | Recruitment of participants The range of age and experience is wide, representing a varied popu-
lation recruited. A total of 96% of participants were registered nurses.
A convenience sample was obtained by inviting all nursing staff work- Experienced ACCU nurses were the majority, with 43% being Sister/
ing within the ACCU to apply for the MBSR programme via a group Charge Nurses and 30% Senior Sister/Charge Nurses. This contributes
email. No exclusion criteria were set to promote equitable opportuni- to 83% having completed a postgraduate course in critical care. Rep-
ties to access the programme. Nurses were informed of the learning resentation from the cardiothoracic ICU 1 and 2 and General ICU was
objectives, commitment requirements, programme content, and the balanced with similar numbers. There was only one nurse from the
duration of the course. The opportunity to take part and enrol was high dependency unit in the group. The ACCU employs nurses from a
voluntary. Interested participants were required to complete an appli- variety of backgrounds from both the United Kingdom and interna-
cation form and were offered a place on a first come, first served tionally (Table 1).
basis. All participants were required to pay a £20 deposit, which was
refunded at the end of the course. All 25 available spaces were filled;
however, because of the long timeframe from expressions of interest 2.7 | Ethical considerations
to starting the course, some participants' (n = 2) circumstances chan-
ged, and therefore, they did not commence the course. Prior to The study took place on NHS property in 2018 involving NHS nursing
starting the course, participants were asked to complete personal staff. The need for ethical approval must be ascertained before con-
demographics via an online survey platform using a unique and anony- ducting any study that may fall into a research paradigm.21 Permission
mous participant number. from the Senior Nurse (Band 8B) and the Medical Director for ACCU
within the Trust to conduct the Analysis of Healthcare Provision and
introduce the intervention was sought and granted. A meeting was
2.6 | Participants arranged with the Trusts' Director of Research who advised that the
study did not require Trust ethical approval. NHS Research Ethics
Of the 23 nurses included in the baseline sample for this study, all par- Committee (NHS REC) ethical approval was not needed after consult-
ticipants (100%) were nursing staff, and 87% were female. The mean ing the NHS REC decision tool. All participants were given an informa-
age was 35.4 years, with a mean length of experience of 7.4 years. tion sheet for the study, and consent was obtained.

TABLE 1 Demographics of baseline sample


3 | RE SU LT S
Variable Total (n = 23)
Gender
Psychometric effects of the MBSR training were assessed using self-
Male n = 3 (13%)
report questionnaires administered at the face-to-face sessions. The
Female n = 20 (87%) mean score of the SWLS pre-course was 22.58, which improved to
Age Mean = 35.4 (SD = 7.6) 26.55 post-course at week 8 but reduced to 25.69 at month 4. For
Range = 24-58 years PSS, the mean pre-test score was 21.67, which improved to 13.70
Critical care experience (y) Mean = 7.4 (SD = 4.5) immediately post-course. This reduction in perceived stress was
Range = 1-21 years maintained and decreased further at the 4-month mark to 12.25. For
Band and job title MAAS, the pre-course score of 3.21 in the participants increased in
2 health care assistant n = 1 (4%) week 8 and month 4 to 4.03 and 4.25, respectively. Figure 1 shows

5 staff nurse n = 5 (22%)


positive trends and similarities between scores at the three time
points.
6 sister/charge nurse n = 10 (43%)
Tests were run on the raw data to detect significance. It was
7 senior sister/charge nurse n = 7 (30%)
noted that the histograms for the SWLS, PSS, and MAAS were not
Postgraduate ICU course
always symmetrical around the mean. Therefore, to address the issue
Not completed n = 4 (17%)
of non-normality on the results, a bootstrap analysis (Table 2) was
Completed n = 19 (83%)
conducted. The results from the bootstrap were similar to those of
Current ACCU base the Bonferroni paired comparison tests, and the overall findings of sig-
CTICU 1 n = 7 (30%) nificance remain unaltered.
CTICU 2 n = 9 (39%)
HDU n = 1 (4%)
GICU n = 6 (26%) 3.1 | Sickness and absence
Abbreviations: ACCU, adult critical care unit; CTICU, cardiothoracic inten-
sive care unit; GICU, general intensive care unit; HDU, high dependency Average total hours of sickness for all participants were analysed in a
unit; ICU, intensive care unit. 6-month period pre- and post-intervention. The mean number of
ANDERSON 5

F I G U R E 1 Mean scores of Mean Scores of Satisfaction with Life Score, Percieved Stress S


cale, 
satisfaction with life score (SWLS), and Mindful Attention Awareness Scale over the 3 time points 
perceived stress scale (PSS), and mindful 30
attention awareness scale (MAAS) at each
25
time point

20

Mean Scores 
15 SWLS
PSS
10
MAAS
5

0
Pre Course 8 weeks 4 months
Time point

T A B L E 2 Differences between time


Bonferroni
points (Stata bootstrap)
Measure Time Point Mean diff. SE z P>z (95% CI)
SWLS Week 8 vs pre-course 3.92* 0.90 4.38 <.001 1.78 6.07
4 months vs pre-course 3.24 2.11 1.54 .37 −1.81 8.29
4 months vs week 8 −0.68 2.19 −0.31 1.00 −5.94 4.57
PSS Week 8 vs pre-course −7.85* 1.36 −5.78 <.001 −11.10 −4.60
4 months vs pre-course −8.69* 1.71 −5.09 <.001 −12.78 −4.61
4 months vs week 8 −0.85 1.19 −0.71 1.00 −3.69 2.00
MAAS Week 8 vs pre-course 0.83* 0.21 4.02 <.001 0.34 1.32
4 months vs pre-course 0.99* 0.22 4.53 <.001 0.47 1.51
4 months vs week 8 0.16 0.14 1.12 .78 −0.18 0.49

Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; diff, difference; MAAS, mindful attention awareness scale;
PSS, perceived stress scale; SWLS, satisfaction with life score.
*The mean difference is significant at the .05 level.

sickness hours claimed was 51.33 hours pre-course compared with 4 | DI SCU SSION
39.85 hours post-course. There was no significant difference between
sickness absences in the 6-month period pre-intervention compared Home life and general well-being was measured using the scales of
with the 6-month period post-intervention based on the Wilcoxon the SWLS. At the immediate post-course mark, there was a significant
signed-rank test (P = .69). difference when compared with the pre-course scores (P < .001).
Imbalances of sick leave taken between participants were noted. However, at the 4-month follow-up point, the significance had
Participants 4, 3, 12, and 23 took higher-than-average numbers of dropped (P = .412) when comparing with the pre-course scores. Com-
sickness days. Participant 23 took 571 hours of sickness absence in paring the 4-month follow-up scores with the 8-week immediate
the 6-month period pre-intervention, which—compared with the post-course scores, no improvement was detectable (P = 1.000). The
mean score of 51.33 hours—is disproportionate. Figure 2 shows box effects of the MBSR in this study on home life and general well-being
plots with data outliers with comparisons. were therefore insignificant at the 4-month follow up. One explana-
Therefore, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test was repeated with Par- tion is that general well-being and life satisfaction are complex
ticipant 23 excluded to determine if there was any significant differ- domains with multiple facets on which MBSR has limited influence. In
ence for the remaining participants. Similarly, the mean and median contrast to this study, Dos Santos22 and Mackenzie et al23 both con-
sickness levels did not differ significantly between pre- and post- cluded that life satisfaction improved after MBSR training; however,
course (P = .39). some positive effects were lost at the 6-week follow-up period in the
6 ANDERSON

F I G U R E 2 Pre- and post-intervention


sickness hours box plots with outliers

Dos Santos22 study, and the Mackenzie et al23 study only measured Analysis of average hours of sick leave pre-intervention vs post-
life satisfaction immediately post-intervention. It is therefore also pos- intervention demonstrated that there was no significant improvement
sible that these positive effects were lost in the period following com- in sickness scores of nurses following the MBSR programme (P = .69).
pletion of the intervention. Even though some of the sickness in this cohort was caused by mus-
The PSS and MAAS are both related to workplace stress, and the culoskeletal pain, it was difficult to relate this study to the Lopes
mean scores at the different time points were used to ascertain et al32 study, which showed an improvement in sickness caused by
changes in stress levels. Promisingly, in both the PSS and the MAAS, Musculoskeletal pain alone. The findings did, however, agree with the
the scores from pre-course to immediately post-course at week Steinberg et al33 study, which also concluded that there were no sig-
8 showed a significant improvement (P < .001) and again at the nificant differences in ICU nurses' sickness scores after an MBSR pro-
4-month mark (P < .001). Many studies concur with this study and gramme. Interestingly, it was noted that one participant took
found significant reductions in stress levels following MBSR training excessive hours of sick leave in the pre-intervention period, and when
for registered nurses in various worldwide locations22,24-26 and more these data were excluded from the analysis, mean levels of sickness
specifically for critical care nurses in Malaysia.27 Daigel et al28 and increased slightly post-intervention, although this increase is likely to
29
Valley and Stallones both highlight that a reduction in stress levels be coincidental and unrelated to the MBSR programme.
in nurses can increase patient safety and reduce cognitive failures. Attrition was noted on day 1 of the course, with two nurses (9%)
This is promising given the significant reduction in perceived stress unable to attend because of sickness and therefore not completing
and increase in mindfulness awareness in this critical care nursing the pre-test questionnaires and not receiving the face-to-face intro-
cohort. ductory session and instructions on how to access the online sessions.
The long-term effects of the intervention were measured at This left 21 active participants. At week 8, an additional participant
4 months post-completion of the course, and there was a significant withdrew because of an inability to engage with the programme. At
improvement in both PSS and MAAS at month 4 compared with pre- month 4, one participant had resigned, and three participants did not
intervention (P < .001). This indicates that the positive effect of MBSR respond to the final questionnaire and were presumed to have
training persisted in the PSS and MAAS at month 4. However, when stopped practicing mindfulness. The overall retention rate was there-
comparing differences in scores between the immediate post- fore 70% (n = 16).
intervention period at week 8 to the 4-month mark, there were no
further improvements in either the PSS or the MAAS (P = 1.000 and
P = .787, respectively). There are limited examples in the literature 4.1 | Implications for management/practice
that have collected follow-up data on completion of the MBSR train-
ing in order to determine lasting effects. Two studies that did collect The findings of this study have significance for leaders of health care,
25,30
follow-up data both concluded that improvements in stress per- especially those managing critical care teams. Nurses using mindful-
sisted when following up participants at 3 months and 1 month, ness techniques in everyday practice can redirect negative thinking
respectively. Cervolo and Raines31 concluded similarly that, while the and reframe difficult situations. An MBSR intervention demonstrates
positive effects of MBSR were similar immediately post-intervention a feasible method to build a more mindful, content, and productive
compared with the 3-month follow up, the follow-up scores were still workforce, thus improving patient care. Providing nurses with the
significantly improved compared with pre-intervention. This matches support and resources to attend MBSR training, as well as ongoing
the findings of this study. support to enable these learned behaviours to be maintained, is
ANDERSON 7

essential. Health and well-being of staff is especially important since must take into consideration the limitations and lessons learned in
COVID19 impacted critical care teams globally in 2020. NHS leaders this project.
must be aware of the availability of such programmes and be prepared
OR CID
to implement them when possible. By offering training programmes
Neil Anderson https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3275-5769
such as MBSR, an organization provides a clear message that it care
about the health and well-being of its employees.
RE FE RE NCE S
1. Flynn H. Nine in ten healthcare staff experience work related stress.
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4.2 | Limitations 2. NHS England. NHS England Publishes Latest NHS Staff Survey; 2018.
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Limitations were acknowledged during the implementation and con- nhs-staff-survey-results/. Accessed November 24, 2018.
3. NHS Digital. NHS Sickness Absence Rates; 2018. https://digital.nhs.uk/
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data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-sickness-absence-
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8 ANDERSON

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