Addressing neonatal intensive care unit clinicians’ distress via interprofessional meetings

OBJECTIVE: Our primary objective was to determine whether brief, as-needed interprofessional meetings reduced distress related to specific patient cases for interprofessional clinicians in the neonatal intensive care unit. STUDY DESIGN: We collected pre- and post-meeting surveys to quantify clinicians' distress. RESULT: We collected 416 paired responses (80% participation rate) from 192 unique clinicians. RESULTS: After meetings, clinicians reported reduced intensity of most distressing thoughts; they were more likely to feel their perspective was heard (1.51 to 1.17, SD 0.82, p < 0.001), the team was united (1.56 to 1.22, SD 0.84, p < 0.001), they could provide good care (1.76 to 1.62, SD 0.98, p < 0.001), and that the rationale for care was reasonable (1.93 to 1.52, SD 0.93, p < 0.001). Moral distress was also lower on post assessments (5.47 to 5.27, SD 2.55, p = 0.005). CONCLUSIONS: Brief, as-needed interprofessional meetings decreased distressing thoughts about challenging cases, particularly for those experiencing the greatest distress.