Gratitude at Work: Prospective Cohort Study of a Web-Based, Single-Exposure Well-Being Intervention for Health Care Workers.
J Med Internet Res
; 22(5): e15562, 2020 05 14.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-32406864
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Emotional exhaustion (EE) in health care workers is common and consequentially linked to lower quality of care. Effective interventions to address EE are urgently needed.OBJECTIVE:
This randomized single-exposure trial examined the efficacy of a gratitude letter-writing intervention for improving health care workers' well-being.METHODS:
A total of 1575 health care workers were randomly assigned to one of two gratitude letter-writing prompts (self- vs other focused) to assess differential efficacy. Assessments of EE, subjective happiness, work-life balance, and tool engagement were collected at baseline and 1-week post intervention. Participants received their EE score at baseline and quartile benchmarking scores. Paired-samples t tests, independent t tests, and correlations explored the efficacy of the intervention. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software assessed the linguistic content of the gratitude letters and associations with well-being.RESULTS:
Participants in both conditions showed significant improvements in EE, happiness, and work-life balance between the intervention and 1-week follow-up (P<.001). The self-focused (vs other) instruction conditions did not differentially predict improvement in any of the measures (P=.91). Tool engagement was high, and participants reporting higher motivation to improve their EE had higher EE at baseline (P<.001) and were more likely to improve EE a week later (P=.03). Linguistic analyses revealed that participants high on EE at baseline used more negative emotion words in their letters (P=.005). Reduction in EE at the 1-week follow-up was predicted at the level of a trend by using fewer first-person (P=.06) and positive emotion words (P=.09). No baseline differences were found between those who completed the follow-up assessment and those who did not (Ps>.05).CONCLUSIONS:
This single-exposure gratitude letter-writing intervention appears to be a promising low-cost, brief, and meaningful tool to improve the well-being of health care workers.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
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Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Pessoal de Saúde
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Emoções
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Angústia Psicológica
Tipo de estudo:
Clinical_trials
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Etiology_studies
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Incidence_studies
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Observational_studies
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Prognostic_studies
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Risk_factors_studies
Limite:
Female
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Humans
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Male
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2020
Tipo de documento:
Article