Results support preliminary effectiveness of a 4-week MMC in reducing self-reported stress symptoms among nursing leaders.

This article describes the rationale, implementation and results of a pilot study evaluating the personal and organizational impact of an educational intervention on the stress of health team members. The compelling imperative for the project was to find a positive and effective way to address the documented stress levels of healthcare workers. Pilot study of oncology staff (n=29) and healthcare leaders (n=15) exploring the impact of a positive coping approach on Personal and Organizational Quality Assessment-Revised (POQA-R) scores at baseline and 7 months using paired t-tests. Personal and organizational indicators of stress decreased in the expected directions in both groups over the time intervals. The majority of POQA-R categories were statistically significantly improved in the oncology staff, and many of the categories were statistically significantly improved in the leadership group. The findings from this project demonstrate that stress and its symptoms are problematic issues for hospital and ambulatory clinic staff as evidenced by baseline measures of distress. Further, a workplace intervention was feasible and effective in promoting positive strategies for coping and enhancing well-being, personally and organizationally.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant nurse stress and contributed to burnout for a number of reasons, including but not limited to personal protective equipment shortages, furloughs, overtime, reassignment to unfamiliar work environments, and alternate staffing patterns, all of which contribute to grief, loss, fear, and anger. While the nursing profession and employers offered support and psychological first-aid resources, there was a disconnect in effectively linking stressed nurses with these needed resources. An innovative statewide pilot project in Arizona, RNconnect 2 Wellbeing, was created to determine whether nurses might respond to and use supportive resources via opt-in text messages. Over a 12-week enrollment trial, 2997 nurse users opted to receive brief, twice weekly, well-being text messages about subjects, such as increasing awareness, self-care, and gratitude. By the end of the pilot, 2777 nurse users remained enrolled (7% opt out). Convenience evaluation surveys were conducted at midpoint (n = 294) and pilot completion (n = 404). Satisfaction with the messages ranged from 73% to 86%. Forty-eight percent indicated they had integrated the resources into their daily lives. RNconnect 2 Wellbeing, an innovative and cost-effective approach to communicating with nurses, has laid the groundwork for the use of technology via brief text messages to improve nurse well-being.