Clinical Debriefing Impact Related to Intent to Leave and Job Satisfaction

Objective

The purpose of this quality improvement project was to determine what effect holding clinical debriefing following traumatic patient encounters has on employee intent to leave and job satisfaction.

Methods

This observational quality improvement project was undertaken at Augusta University AirCare a helicopter emergency medicine service, in a large, metropolitan city located in the southeast from September 12th, 2023, to October 12th, 2023. The mean of each survey section was utilized to compare the pre-and post-survey scores to determine the effect of a structured clinical debrief on employee intent to leave, burnout, and job satisfaction.

Results

A total of 6 flight clinicians completed the pre-test survey and 5 flight clinicians completed the post-test. Although results were not statistically significant, post-intervention scores reflected a decrease in the mean value after implementation of the STOP5 debrief model for both burnout (pre-intervention mean= 62, post intervention mean=56) and intent to leave (pre-intervention mean=17, post intervention mean= 9). However, job satisfaction mean value did not increase as expected (pre-intervention mean= 12, post-intervention mean=14), which may be due to the short implementation period between measurements.

Conclusion

This Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) quality improvement project determined that holding clinical debriefs following traumatic patient encounters may decrease employee intent to leave and burnout but did not show improvement in employee job satisfaction.