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Health Workers' Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Resilience During COVID-19 Pandemic.

Hsiang-Yu Ma, Nein-Tsu Chiang, Rui-Hsin Kao, Chih-Ying Lee

Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare 2024 DOI: 10.2147/JMDH.S464285 (opens in new tab)

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Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Qualitative study Peer reviewed
Population Health workers in a hospital on an outer island of Taiwan
Intervention mindfulness-based stress reduction
Topics Meditation
Keywords Covid-19 pandemic Health workers
Citations 7
Key findings Common sources of stress for health workers included exposure to infectious diseases, heavy workloads, ethical dilemmas, and unfamiliar pandemic problems, causing worry, anxiety, and depression that affected their health and patient-care performance.

Abstract

Research indicates that a significant number of healthcare workers accounted for all confirmed Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases, and many of the infected healthcare workers were asymptomatic. During the COVID-19 outbreak, a considerable number of people in Taiwan contracted the disease. Therefore, health workers in Taiwan often experienced lack of medical resources, and this problem is worse for outer island areas. In terms of stress and mental health, this study investigated the effect of poor healthcare capacity and high workload on health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study also explored mindfulness-based stress reduction and resilience in health workers. This study conducted an in-depth interview to investigate stress perceived by health workers in a hospital located on an outer island of Taiwan as well as their mental health and stress relieving strategies. It was found that during the COVID-19 outbreak, some common sources of stress for health workers included exposure to infectious diseases, heavy workloads, facing ethical dilemma in clinical decision-making, and unfamiliar problems from the pandemic. These types of stress cause worries, anxiety, and depression in health workers, which affects their mental and physical health as well as their patient-care performance. This study proposed that mindfulness-based stress reduction and protecting mental health are important for health workers.

Comparable studies

Other qualitative studies on meditation, most cited first.

Study Year Design Participants
The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists Western Buddhist meditation practitioners and experts in Theravāda, Zen, and Tibetan... 2017 Qualitative study with mixed-methods
The Effects of Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction on Nurse Stress and Burnout Nurses in a hospital system 2004 Implementation study with mixed methods
An exploratory mixed methods study of the acceptability and effectiveness of mindfulness -based cognitive therapy for patients with active depression and anxiety in primary care Primary care patients with recurrent depression or recurrent depression and anxiety 2006 Exploratory mixed methods study n = 13
A qualitative study of mindfulness‐based cognitive therapy for depression Participants in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in a mental-health context 2001 Qualitative study n = 7
Effortless awareness: using real time neurofeedback to investigate correlates of posterior cingulate cortex activity in meditators' self-report Meditators 2013 Qualitative study using grounded theory methodology

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Meditation Anxiety Depression