Evaluating a brief online compassion-focused intervention for intensive care nurses.

BACKGROUND: High levels of stress have been found within health care staff, particularly in the nursing population, which is somewhat attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic. The development of self-compassion, a protective psychological construct, may promote well-being in the health care staff population. As part of a service development project, the authors delivered and evaluated a brief online compassion-focused intervention with nurses working within Intensive Care Units (ICUs). AIMS: Aims were to explore feasibility within the ICU nursing population and consider potential benefits to psychological well-being. METHODS: ICU nurses registered for an online, 4 week, compassion-focused intervention as part of a service development project. Measures of compassion, burnout, trauma, and the emotional climate of their work environment were analysed in two groups; those who completed the intervention and those who did not. Baseline and post-intervention measures were analysed to infer the potential benefits of the intervention. RESULTS: Compared with their baseline scores, those who completed the intervention showed improvements on measures of compassion, soothing in emotional climate, and reductions in burnout, trauma and threat in emotional climate. At baseline, those who did not complete the intervention scored lower on measures of compassion and soothing within their emotional climate, as well as higher levels of trauma and threat within the emotional climate, compared with those who engaged with the intervention. CONCLUSIONS: Brief online compassion-focused interventions may be a useful platform to promote well-being in ICU nurses, but possibly only for those who have a pre-established level of self-compassion.

Proprioception in the cruciate deficient knee.

Proprioception was measured in the knees of 20 subjects with instability of the anterior cruciate ligament and compared with 17 age-matched control subjects. There was diminished position sense and threshold for movement detection in the injured patients compared with the control group. The proprioceptive deficit recorded from the injured knee showed a significant correlation with the hamstring/quadriceps power ratio recorded from the injured leg.

Effect of heel height on forefoot loading.

Sixty feet of 30 normal subjects were investigated to determine the effect of changing the heel height on forefoot loading. Subjects walked across footplates barefoot and with rigid polyurethane heels attached to the foot with a tubular bandage. The total load on the forefoot remained unchanged at all of the heel heights, but the distribution of the load changed as the heel was raised. The area of forefoot contact with the footplates decreased and there was a deviation of load toward the medial side of the forefoot with a resultant increase in pressure. These effects could contribute to overload of the distal forefoot and especially of the first ray.