Staff Education to Use Mindfulness Strategies to Prevent Burnout in Psychiatric Health Settings

There was a significant gap in practice at an outpatient psychiatric mental health clinic regarding organized, evidence-based training on mindfulness techniques to reduce stress and emotional exhaustion among psychiatric mental health staff. This project’s practice-focused question was “Does educating psychiatric mental health staff on mindfulness strategies for burnout improve their knowledge, as evidenced by pre- and post-surveys?” This educational intervention was developed, implemented, and evaluated using the Johns Hopkins Evidence-Based Practice paradigm and the ADDIE instructional design model. A literature search was conducted using CINAHL Complete, MEDLINE/PubMed, ProQuest, and the Cochrane Library, with assistance from the librarians at Walden University. The search yielded 45 articles, of which 11 sources, including systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and peer-reviewed studies, provided information relevant to this project. Ten participants, which includes six registered nurses and four mental health management staff members, participated in the pre- and post-intervention assessments. A one-time educational event and learn in-person learning sessions were organized by me at the psychiatric clinic during the lunch period. The pre-test scores were 56.72%, and after the intervention, posttest scores rose to 96.68%. The results of a paired t-test showed a statistically significant increase in accurate answers from the pre-survey to the post-survey, with a t value of 7.14 (df = 9, p