Self-care strategies for healthcare professionals

Mindfulness can help manage stress

Dr. Montserrat Esquerda Aresté

Director of the Borja Institute of Bioethics. Ramon Llull University. Phd in pediatrics

Sant Joan de Déu Terres de Lleida

The MINDCOVID study shows a significant impact on the mental health of healthcare professionals . According to this research, almost half of the professionals are at risk, with the most prevalent symptoms being depression (28%), anxiety (22.5%), post-traumatic stress (22%), and suicidal ideation (3.5%).

How to Take Care of Mental Health

The pandemic has clearly impacted the mental health of healthcare professionals, but it was already considered a high-risk profession long before. We cannot forget that, even before the pandemic, healthcare professionals had very high rates of mental health risks and burnout.

Depending on the field or specialty, the percentage of burnout among healthcare professionals ranged (before COVID-19) between 20 and 80%, that is, 1 in 5.

Burnout syndrome not only has a significant impact on a personal level, putting the physical and mental health of professionals at risk, but also on the quality of care received by those being treated.

It is clear that different personal, organizational and structural factors converge in the development of these figures.

Medical students also exhibit high levels of psychopathological symptoms, stress, and burnout . This is due to a number of factors, including the rigorous selection criteria for admission to medical school, which demand very high grades, a demanding academic level, and close contact with illness and death—all of which are associated with a certain reluctance to seek help. Several studies demonstrate a correlation between poor mental health during academic and residency periods and an increased risk of stress and burnout during professional practice.

It is essential that medical students or students of other health professions and health professionals in general incorporate mental health prevention strategies , as well as strategies for coping with potentially stressful situations inherent in professional practice.

This competence should be guaranteed during training, but as Frederic Hafferty points out, many of the most essential and critical aspects of professional development depend on informal learning or chance encounters—that is, the hidden curriculum . Despite being a fundamental aspect of the healthcare profession, we are not necessarily ensuring that it is developed in a consistent, structured, and formal manner.

The benefits of mindfulness for healthcare professionals

Numerous programs have been developed to improve the mental health of students and healthcare professionals. Those that have yielded the best results are mindfulness-based programs.

Mindfulness is a practice that combines formal and informal structured interventions, focused on paying attention in a particular way: intentionally, in the present moment, and without judgment. Mindfulness consists of two components: self-regulation of attention and how experiences are experienced.

Mindfulness can help healthcare professionals in three areas:

To manage the stress and emotional impact they experience during professional practice.
To improve skills related to better clinical practice, as well as empathy, active listening, and compassion.
To identify the people being served who can benefit from mindfulness and to explicitly promote its practice.

The study " Effectiveness of a Mindfulness-Based Programme on Perceived Stress, Psychopathological Symptomatology and Burnout in Medical Students " has found that following a mindfulness program clearly improves psychopathological symptoms and is very useful for managing stress, but has little impact on academic burnout .

Healthcare professions are therefore high-risk professions, and the pandemic has added to this burden. Now is a good time to identify the most effective strategies, both for prevention and for managing illness.

This pandemic has taught us many things, including the urgent need to normalize and incorporate mental health management strategies across all healthcare professions. And perhaps the most powerful strategy for humanizing healthcare would be to have well-cared-for professionals and students with ingrained self-care skills.