Promoting Mental Health at Work Among Hospital Professionals

Summary

Mental health is a state of well-being in which a person can realize his/her potential, cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively and contribute to his/her community. It refers to a continuum that extends from the promotion of well-being and the prevention of mental disorders to the treatment and rehabilitation of people suffering from these disorders.

Healthcare professionals face major mental health challenges, due to the demands of their profession, which is characterized by heavy workloads and confrontation with human distress. The frequency of mental health problems among hospital staff is high, at all stages (malaise, distress, pathologies). A meta-analysis found that caregivers suffer from around 30% anxiety, 30% depression, 30% psychotrauma and 45% sleep disorders.

According to the French Labor Code, employers are responsible for the physical and mental health of their employees. The Hospices Civils de Lyon establishment project includes a section on the prevention of psycho-social risks, quality of working life and management.

Healthcare professionals, like the general population, have high expectations of non-medication treatments. These non-medication interventions aim to prevent, treat, or cure a health problem. They are non-invasive and non-pharmacological, with certain observable impacts supported by scientific evidence.

Mindfulness meditation is one of the most extensively studied non-medication interventions in mental health. Declined in different modalities, its effects focus on improving resilience with efficacy on physical and mental well-being (stress, anxiety, burnout, affect), and their physiological corollary (cardiac and respiratory rhythms), acceptance of reality in stressful situations, reduced interpersonal conflict in emergencies and, more broadly, impact on relational behaviours (anti- and pro-social), teamwork. Managers also benefit, with a strengthening of the aspiration to lead, in a vision fully at the disposal of others.

Mindfulness meditation appears to be a practice that promotes mental well-being and could contribute to fulfilment at work.

The challenge is to offer a mindfulness meditation program in a hospital department for individual and collective benefit.

The main objective is to evaluate the evolution of psychological fulfilment in the workplace of hospital healthcare professionals in a 5-month meditation program between the baseline and the end of the program, in comparison with the evolution over the same period of a control group.

The expected outcome is to show that it is possible to implement a mindfulness meditation intervention for hospital staff in care departments, whatever their status or profession, with individual and collective benefits for mental health, psycho-social risks (stress, violence, etc.) and work organization. If it proves to be effective and acceptable, this intervention could be offered more widely within the institution and beyond.

Conditions

• Mental Health Issue

Interventions

OTHER

Information session on mindfulness meditation and questionnaires

The information session on mindfulness meditation is an information meeting on the PROMIND study opened to all hospital professionals from the 8 participating departments, i.e. the intervention and control groups. During this information session, it is specified that it is desirable for the non-intervention groups to maintain their usual practice (or non-practice) during the study, without starting a new practice of mindfulness meditation. Before this meeting, the baseline questionnaires are administered. Immediately after this time, the questionnaire on representations of mindfulness meditation is administered.

DEVICE

Mindfulness meditation experimentation, practice program, questionnaires, individual interview and focus group

After randomization, a mindfulness meditation trial session is offered to all professionals in the intervention group follow by the questionnaire on representations of mindfulness meditation administration. Then, interdepartmental focus groups is conducted with leaders. The following mindfulness meditation program consists of 10 1-hour sessions within 15 days, in groups of up to 15 professionals, conducted at the participants' place and time of work, by a certified mindfulness meditation trainer with a recommended daily practice of 10-20 minutes with the possibility of a longer duration, and an audio guidance tool adapted to the study. After the program, and 3 months later, questionnaires are administered for both groups. For the intervention group, individual interviews, and inter-departmental focus groups (leaders) are carried out at the end of the intervention, and intra-departmental focus groups are conducted 3 months after the end.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Hospices Civils de Lyon

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Ludivine NOHALES · Hospices Civils de Lyon

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-05-30

Primary Completion

2024-11-30

Completion

2025-06-30

Countries

• France

Study Locations