Previous online mindfulness-based interventions for burnout and stress reduction in medical personnel had limited effect size and high dropout rate, so we developed a new online mindfulness program ‘Mindful Senses (MS)’ with aims to increase effect size and lower dropout rate. To test its efficacy and feasibility, ninety medical personnel with moderate or high levels of burnout and stress from across Thailand were recruited and randomly allocated into Group A and Group B equally. Group A read psychological self-help articles (PSA) and attended MS program through smartphone application during weeks 1–4. Group B read PSA during weeks 1–4 and attended MS program during weeks 9–12. Burnout, stress, anxiety, depression, mindfulness, and quality of life were measured at baseline, week 4, and week 8 for both groups, and at weeks 12 and 16 for Group B. Group x time interaction was analyzed by repeated-measures ANOVA. The results showed that, compared to PSA only, MS + PSA had statistically significant improvement of burnout, stress, anxiety, depression, mindfulness, and quality of life with moderate-to-very large effect sizes at week 4 (d = 1.33, 1.42, 1.04, 1.14, 0.70, and 1.03, respectively) and moderate-to-large effect sizes at week 8 (d = 0.84, 0.98, 0.73, 0.73, 0.66, and 0.94, respectively). The dropout rate was 4.4%. In conclusion, the MS program has potential to be an alternative intervention for medical personnel suffering from burnout and stress.

Background             Previous online mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) for burnout and stress reduction in medical personnel suffered from limited effect size and high dropout rate. The results were equivocal across studies with several limitations in their study designs. Therefore, we developed an online MBI entitled “Mindful Senses (MS)”, a minimally therapist-guided online audio-based mindfulness program, with aims to increase the effect size and lower dropout rate and tested its efficacy and feasibility with randomized active-controlled study design. Methods           We recruited online 90 medical personnel who had moderate or high levels of burnout and stress from across Thailand. Participants were randomly allocated into Group A and B equally. Group A read four weekly Psychological Self-Help Articles (PSA) and attended the MS program during weeks 1-4. Group B read PSA during weeks 1-4 and attended MS program during week 9-12. Outcomes including burnout, stress, depression, anxiety, mindfulness, and quality of life (QOL) were measured at baseline (T0), week 4 (T1), and week 8 (T2) for both groups. Group X time interaction was analyzed by repeated-measures ANOVA. Results           MS + PSA had significantly better improvement than PSA only in burnout, stress, anxiety, depression, mindfulness, and QOL, with medium-to-very large effect sizes (d = 1.33, 1.42, 1.04, 1.14, 0.70, and 1.03, respectively) at T1. The outcome differences remained at T2 with medium-to-large effect sizes (d = 0.84, 0.98, 0.73, 0.73, 0.66, and 0.94, respectively). The dropout rate was 4.4%. Conclusions                   MS program is an online MBI that reduced burnout and stress in medical personnel with a large effect size and low dropout rate. Its effects remained at one-month follow-up. The MS program is feasible and has a potential to be an alternative intervention for medical personnel suffering from burnout and stress.