Clinical trial NCT05051969: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Metro Nashville Public School Employees
Official title: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Metro Nashville Public School Employees
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Self-compassion
Burnout
Stress
Anxiety
Depression
Keywords: Burnout
Self-compassion
Lead sponsor: Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2021-09-21
Enrollment: 37
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: OTHER

Brief summary: Stress, anxiety, and depression are common symptoms among public school teachers. Public school teachers are among the top professions reporting stress, anxiety, and depression. The causes are multifactorial and include work-related demands, challenges with students, limited resources, and compassion fatigue. Because of this, teachers are at risk of burnout and leaving or changing their profession. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a considerable impact on teachers due to disruptions in usual education delivery and ability to support students. Recent reports show poorer mental health and decreases in physical activity in teachers since the onset of the pandemic. Effective and implementable strategies are urgently needed to address poor mental health and to foster positive health characteristics in this population.

Mindfulness programs decrease feelings of stress, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion. Additionally, mindfulness can improve self-compassion, which may be an important mediating factor in a teacher population. Prior work has shown an inverse relationship between self-compassion and burnout. Currently, there are few studies investigating whether building self-compassion can reduce burnout in public school teachers. The investigators will explore therelationship between participation in a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course and changes in burnout, self-compassion, and other whole person health measures in an educator population. The overall objective of this open pilot study is to examine the feasibility and acceptability of an 8-week remote, group-based MBSR program delivered over Zoom for Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) personnel reporting elevated stress, anxiety, and/or depressive symptoms. Our pilot study results will contribute to the evidence on MBSR in a public-school employee population and inform strategies to optimize implementation of our remote MBSR program within the Vanderbilt Health at MNPS system.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Working certificated Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) employees who self-report stress, anxiety, and/or depressive symptoms

Exclusion Criteria:

* Unable to commit to the weekly MBSR schedule
* Have taken the MBSR course previously
* Participants who do not have reliable home internet

Primary outcomes:
measure: Feasibility - Recruitment
timeFrame: Baseline
measure: Feasibility- class attendance
timeFrame: Baseline to program completion (8 weeks)
measure: Feasibility- enrollment retention
timeFrame: Baseline to 12 weeks after enrollment
measure: Acceptability - Overall Helpfulness of the course
timeFrame: Baseline to 8 weeks
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Perceived stress as measured by a Perceived Stress Scale
timeFrame: Baseline, 8 weeks and 12 weeks
measure: Anxiety as measured by the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Anxiety short form
timeFrame: Baseline, 8 weeks and 12 weeks
measure: Depression as measured by the PROMIS Depression short form
timeFrame: Baseline, 8 and 12 weeks after enrollment.
measure: Mindfulness as measured by the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire
timeFrame: Baseline, 8 and 12 weeks after enrollment.
measure: Physical health as measured by the 6-item Short Form Health Survey within the (SF-12)
timeFrame: Baseline, 8 and 12 weeks after enrollment.
measure: Mental health as measured by the 6-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-12)
timeFrame: Baseline, 8 and 12 weeks after enrollment.
measure: Self-compassion as measured by the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS)
timeFrame: Baseline, 8 and 12 weeks after enrollment.
measure: Educator burnout as measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educator's Survey
timeFrame: Baseline, 8 and 12 weeks after enrollment.
measure: Acceptability - Satisfaction
timeFrame: Baseline to 8 weeks
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Nashville
country: United States
facility: Vanderbilt University Medical Center
state: Tennessee
Study officials:
affiliation: Vanderbilt University Medical Center
name: Martha E Shepherd, DO, MPH
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: