Authentic Connections Groups: A Pilot Test of an Intervention Aimed at Enhancing Resilience Among Nurse Leader Mothers.

BACKGROUND: Nurse leaders who are mothers are at significant risk for experiencing stress, burnout, and occupational fatigue. Authentic Connections (AC) Groups is an intervention shown to be effective for fostering resilience among at-risk moms, including physicians; however, it has not previously been tested with nurse leaders. AIMS: Our aims were to test the feasibility and acceptability of the AC Groups intervention with nurse leader mothers and examine its effects on participant resilience, as measured by increased self-compassion and decreased distress, depression, perceived stress, and burnout. METHODS: A randomized controlled trial design was employed for this pilot study, with 36 nurse leaders at Mayo Clinic. AC participants attended group sessions for an hour per week for 12 weeks. Control group members were provided 1 hr per week of free time over 12 weeks. Multiple self-report psychological measures were completed at baseline, post-intervention, and 3-month follow-up. RESULTS: The AC Groups intervention was feasible and well-received by nurse leaders. Session attendance rates averaged 92%. Despite the small n's, repeated measures of Analysis of Variance showed significantly greater improvements (p < .05) for participants in the AC Groups than control condition for depression, self-compassion, and perceived stress, with large effect sizes ( η p 2 0.18-0.22). In addition, effect sizes for anxiety and feeling loved approximated the moderate range ( η p 2 0.05 and .07). LINKING EVIDENCE TO ACTION: The AC intervention shows promise as a feasible intervention for mitigating nurse leader mothers' stress by positively impacting indices of well-being, including depression, self-compassion, and perceived stress. Given, the prevalence of stress and burnout among nurse leaders, the effectiveness of the AC intervention in fostering resilience in this population has significant implications for research and practice. Further research is warranted with larger numbers from multiple sites, longer follow-up periods, and biomarker measures of stress.

Toward fostering resilience on a large scale: Connecting communities of caregivers.

In interventions for at-risk children, Tom Dishion strongly exhorted programs that are short term, cost-effective, and delivered in families' own communities, just as resilience researchers underscore the need for programs that provide ongoing support for children's primary caregivers, and are implementable on a large scale. Presented here are preliminary results on a short-term intervention for mothers, the Authentic Connections Virtual Groups. A previous randomized trial of the in-person version of this program, conducted with mothers at high risk for stress and burnout, showed significant benefits. There had been zero dropouts across the 3-month program, and participants showed significant improvements on psychological indices as well as cortisol, even 3 months after the program ended. In the present study, virtual groups were conducted with five sets of women, all white-collar professionals with highly stressful, exacting careers, and most also primary caregivers of their children. Again, there were zero dropouts. Mean satisfaction ratings were 9.6 of 10, and the Net Promoter Score (promoters vs. detractors) fell in the "world class" range. To illuminate mechanisms of change, participants' responses to open-ended questions on the groups' value are presented verbatim. Recurrently mentioned were the development of new, authentic connections and invaluable ongoing support. These results, with the low costs and ease of women's attendance, attest to the value of expanding offerings such as these, toward benefiting even more highly stressed mothers themselves as well as the children for whose care they are responsible.

Cumulative socioeconomic status risk and observations of parent depression: Are there associations with child outcomes?

Parental depression (Goodman et al., 2011) and low socioeconomic status (SES) are important risk factors for child maladjustment. Further, depression and low SES are linked; low SES adults are more likely to experience depression. Whereas studies commonly covary out noise associated with SES variability, research on the association of SES with child outcomes after controlling for parental depression is limited. This study aimed to extend the literature by observing parent depressive affect and evaluating the relationship between cumulative SES risk and child problems as well as whether child gender moderates this association using multigroup nested model comparisons. Findings suggested that cumulative SES risk status explained significant variance in child- and parent-reported internalizing problems and parent-reported externalizing problems after accounting for observed parent depressive affect. Of importance, child gender moderated 2 of these significant findings (i.e., child-reported internalizing and parent-reported externalizing behaviors), such that girls, but not boys, were at higher risk of problems in the context of high cumulative SES risk. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).