Title: The brilliancy of creating an authentic connection
Abstract:
Purpose: To assess whether the RN Brilliancy workshop centered on Jean Watson’s Caring Theory helps provide authentic connection by a) increasing compassion satisfaction and self-compassion in nurses and b) decreasing burnout and secondary traumatic stress. The research aim is to help bedside nurses and nurse leaders to increase job satisfaction and self-compassion about their role by minimizing burnout and secondary traumatic stress.
Background/Significance: The daily work of bedside nursing care and nursing leadership has increased dramatically during COVID. Inherent stressors of patient care include the “emotional toll of caring for ill, injured, or dying patients. Combined with the inherent stressors are the stressors associated with the work environment (external stressors) including documentation demands, staffing levels, excessive workloads, emphasis on productivity, diminished autonomy, and structural and process inefficiencies. Compassion fatigue, burnout, and secondary trauma are well documented issues for the nursing discipline, but there is still an urgent need to address these elements, particularly considering recent studies indicating a more rapid exit of nurses leaving the profession (Shah, et al, 2022).
Methods: This study is a nonrandomized, descriptive study, and will use Watson’s Theory of Human Caring (2010), 10 Caritas process to serve as the structure of the educational workshop. Each workshop is targeted for up 100 volunteer nurses per session. Workshop faculty will work with the participants of this research study to “creatively placemake,” an evolving practice that “intentionally leverages the power of the arts, culture and creativity to lead change, growth and transformation that builds character and quality of place” (Toronto Artscape, 2019, para. 1). By combining creative placemaking theoretical concepts with Watson’s Human Caring, arts and creativity will serve as a springboard that creates stronger authentic connections with oneself, patients, patients’ family members, the community of hospital personnel and to the community at large. Participants spend time engaging in self-care activities derived from mindfulness practices such as meditation, restorative yoga, and breathing exercises. Participants will also spend time journaling with significant prompts/targeted questions related to their experiences as healthcare personnel. Compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress will be measured before the Workshop and after completion using the Professional Quality of Life (ProQOL) – a measurement to help healthcare workers monitor their emotional health when working in difficult circumstances (e.g., a pandemic), and Self-compassion scale (SCS) measurement tool. Data will be collected via RedCAP electronically. Results of Project/Research: Preliminary ProQOL data suggests those that completed the workshop showed an increase in happiness, compassion and affect in positiveness. The self-compassion scale showed improvement in self-kindness vs self-judgement, improvement in emotional well-being, reduction of compassion fatigue and burnout. Implications (including those related to equity, diversity, and/or inclusion): While many researchers have brought art, music, and dance to the bedside to work with patients (Perkins, 2020; Metzl, Morrell & Field, 2016), no research has focused on implementing these interventions specifically based in Watson’s Theory of Human Caring alongside the arts with professional artist from international arenas for our nursing staff.
