GP trainees experience positive improvement in burnout and resilience after participating in a specially-designed mindfulness programme, suggest the findings of a study by Warwick Medical School.
The study, published in the BMC Medical Education, focused on a sample of 17 GP trainees working in Coventry and Warwickshire.
The researchers used the Mindful Practice Curriculum - an intervention designed for doctors, which is structured and addresses issues that are specific to the profession. It has been widely tested in the United States but not the UK.
The trainees took part in weekly 1.5-hour group sessions over a six-week period led a fully trained mindful practice tutor. Prior to starting, the participants completed questionnaires based on validated measures for wellbeing, burnout, stress, mindfulness and resilience. They completed the same questionnaires after they finished the programme.
The results showed significant change for the better in participants scores for all five categories:
- emotional exhaustion (24.2%),
- disengagement (17.7%)
- stress (23.3%),
- resilience (15.8%) and
- wellbeing (22%).
In addition, 16 trainees (94%) scored above the threshold for emotional exhaustion pre-course, but only nine (53%) afterwards.
Co-author Professor Jeremy Dale, Professor of Primary Care at Warwick Medical School said: “GPs at all stages of their career experience considerable stress, often leading to exhaustion and burnout, early retirement and career change. Training to become a GP must not only include focusing on the clinical knowledge and skills needed to care for patients effectively, but also needs to support development of the personal skills needed to cope with being a GP. This is essential to ensuring the sustainability of the profession.
“As this study shows, mindfulness training offers a readily applicable approach, which it is feasible to deliver as part of GP vocational training. Preventing or relieving emotional exhaustion, stress and burnout is unarguably good for GP trainees. Trainees’ wellbeing will almost certainly have an impact on their patients, colleagues and the wider NHS, and so should be a priority in vocational training.”
