Effect of contemplating patient care spiritual flow principles and mindfulness on trauma center nurses' wellbeing: a pilot trial.

Abstract

Trauma nurses commonly encounter stress and burnout and have increased negative affect states and decreased positive affect traits. This study investigated whether trauma center nurses would have improvements in wellbeing scores after reading and contemplating Spiritual Flow: Pathways to Proficient Patient Care and Nurse & Physician Wellbeing (Spiritual Flow). Trauma center surgical intensive care unit nurses completed a baseline and follow-up survey before and after reading and contemplating Spiritual Flow, which provides insights into spirituality and mindfulness. The survey contained four positive affect (PA) items, each rated 1-very little to 5-extremely, that were summed to create a PA score (PAS). The seven negative affect (NA) survey items were similarly rated and reverse coded, 1-extremely to 5-very little, to create a nonstress score (NSS). The PAS (4-20) and NSS (7-35) were summed to create a wellbeing score (WS). Nurses rated the degree to which they felt more peaceful or inspired after contemplating the book. Thirty-seven of 39 (95%) routine nursing staff members completed both surveys. Follow-up values increased for WS (P = 0.0001) and NSS (P = 0.0001) after reading and contemplating Spiritual Flow compared to baseline values. No changes occurred for PAS (P = 0.1606). Because 16% of nurses had a high PAS on the baseline survey, further analyses were performed on the other 84%. Significantly increased values were noted on follow-up for PAS (P = 0.0171), NSS (P = 0.0015), and WS (P = 0.0003) compared to baseline scores. Of 37 nurses, 24 (64.9%) rated feeling more peaceful and/or inspired as moderately or quite a bit. This pilot study suggests that contemplating Spiritual Flow was associated with improvements in surgical intensive care trauma center nurse wellbeing. These preliminary findings need to be confirmed in an investigation that includes a control group and randomization.