Resilience Education for Health-Care Professionals

Abstract

Background: Burnout among health-care professionals is a growing problem having a sizeable impact on patient safety and health care as a whole. High levels of resilience in health-care professionals have been associated with safer care environments, improved health outcomes, higher quality care, and improved caregiver well-being and mental health. Resilience education can improve personal and professional resilience.

Objective: The goal of this project was to evaluate a resilience education program to improve measures of burnout and resilience in health-care professionals.

Design: A quantitative cross-sectional pretest/posttest design was used.

Setting: The resilience education program was implemented in a large, not-for-profit health-care system in the southeastern United States.

Methods: Participants completed the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) and The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-25 (CD-RISC-25) immediately before the workshop and 2 weeks afterward. Participants also completed an evaluation survey one day after the education.

Results: Scores on the CD-RISC-25 showed statistically significant increases in resilience qualities after the education. Although not statistically significant, burnout as measure by CBI scores decreased following the workshop.

Conclusion: A relatively short educational program can positively impact resilience and burnout levels in health-care professionals. Positive outcomes included successful learning outcomes and increased resilience qualities.

Keywords: burnout; interprofessional education; resilience; resilience education.