Effects of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction on Health and Social Care Education: a Cohort-Controlled Study

Abstract

Objectives Mindfulness practice has been recommended as part of health and social care education and training because of its potential benefits in fostering clinical skills and attitudes, increasing self-care, and reducing the effect of stress in education and occupation. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effects of a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program on stress, physical distress, job burnout, work engagement, and empathy for health and social care education. Methods Students ( N = 124) from postgraduate programs in social work, counseling, and family therapy were recruited. Sixty-four students participated in an 8-week MBSR program as an elective course. Sixty students were recruited from other elective courses in the same cohort as control group participants. All participants completed self-report assessments. Results The results suggested that MBSR was associated with significant improvements in perceived efficacy and vigor and significant reductions in physical distress, total job burnout, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization of clients compared with the control group. Conclusions This study contributes to the growing body of literature highlighting the potential use of mindfulness practice to improve students’ personal well-being and professional growth in health and social care education. Mindfulness practice should be further promoted in health and social care education and training.

Work Stress, Mental Health and Validation of Professional Stress Scale (PSS) in an Italian-Speaking Teachers Sample

“…In fact, nurses and social workers showed significantly higher total scores than clinical psychologists, and there were significant differences in subscale scores among professionals. Results and reviews conducted to date have suggested that the scale was a useful measure and predictor of stress [41]. Specifically, in this study, the PSS was administered to professionals in the educational setting; indeed, it was found that there are contexts such as education, service, and helping professions in which the immateriality of the work product can upset the individual.…”

Interventions to reduce burnout in students: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Mindfulness relates to the ability to stay attuned to the present, rather than ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. A total of six interventions adopted this approach (two randomized controlled trials, four quasiexperimental studies; Clarkson et al, 2019;de Vibe et al, 2013;Lo et al 2021;Modrego-Alarcon et al, 2021;O'Driscoll et al, 2019a;O'Driscoll et al, 2019b). The majority were delivered in person (5/6) and ranged from 4 to 8 weeks in length.…”

Mindfulness Is Associated With Lower Stress and Higher Work Engagement in a Large Sample of MOOC Participants

“…Work engagement is an important indicator of employee wellbeing and organizational performance (Seppälä et al, 2009;Xanthopoulou et al, 2009) but this construct has been infrequently studied in mindfulness intervention research (Malinowski and Lim, 2015;Bartlett et al, 2019). Recent evidence on the face-to-face delivery of MBIs such as MBSR indicate that it can be effective in increasing resilience (Klatt et al, 2021) and work engagement at the same time as reducing burnout (Lo et al, 2021) but it is currently unclear whether similar benefits can be derived from scalable and affordable brief online MBIs. Our findings that mindfulness training is clearly associated with higher engagement-and in particular, patterns of adaptive engagement-thus offer an additional contribution to the literature but further research and different methodology are required to establish whether this relationship is causal.…”