There has been a growing body of work regarding correlations between burnout and mindfulness among healthcare workers; however, no studies have examined the relationship between mindfulness in relation to compassion fatigue, compassion satisfaction, nor burnout among social workers. Burnout affects practitioners’ well-being, retention, and quality of services provided. Yet few studies have systematically examined how empathy, emotional regulation, and compassion satisfaction may affect rates of burnout.
The current investigation builds on this limited amount of empirical evidence regarding empathy and emotional regulation, along with the impact of mindfulness and compassion satisfaction on compassion fatigue and burnout among social workers.
The present study led by Jacky T. Thomas, utilized cross-sectional data to explore the impact that psychological variables such as mindfulness, empathy, and emotional separation had on outcome variables such as compassion fatigue, burnout, and compassion satisfaction. Participants were randomly selected from the Kentucky Board of Social Workers and mailed 4 surveys to assess professional quality of life, mindfulness, empathy, and emotional separation. The final sample consisted of 171 Licensed Clinical Social Workers who ranged from 31 to 80 years of age.
Study results showed that higher emotional separation scores shared significant relationships with lower compassion fatigue and burnout scores, and higher compassion satisfaction scores.
The amount of self-reported mindfulness contributed significantly to the variance in burnout scores, and demonstrated the strongest association with compassion satisfaction.
“…further studies would benefit from incorporating other measures of empathy since it is believed to be a complex construct that may involve several distinct processes.”
Findings from the study regarding empathy and emotional separation are consistent with previous findings that it’s not the idea of caring for clients or being moved by a client’s painful circumstances that put practitioners at risk for compassion fatigue or burnout, rather the risk increases when practitioners care for patients without being able to keep themselves separate.
Results from this study and previous findings support that mindfulness practices can enhance a therapist’s ability to intentionally and flexibly regulate attention as well as emotional reactivity, which has been demonstrated to influence burnout. However further studies would benefit from incorporating other measures of empathy since it is believed to be a complex construct that may involve several distinct processes.
Here, causal relationships between variables are difficult to establish because this study was tested at only one point in time using survey data.
Brandt is pursuing his MSW at the University of Hawai’i, Mānoa.
By providing an immersive, engrossing, and controlled visual and auditory experience in which participants can practice mindfulness techniques, Virtual Reality (VR) systems can create immersive, ecologically valid, first-person experiences that can even tap into physiological reactions that align with real-world experiences.
The researchers were interested in understanding if forgiveness acts as a mechanism by which mindfulness relates to relationship satisfaction. They speculated that being mindful would allow individuals to be aware of their own and their partners’ emotions in a non-judgmental and non-reactive way. The increased awareness would make people more forgiving of partner transgressions, thereby enhancing relationship satisfaction.
Emerging studies are highlighting the effectiveness of mindfulness, gratitude and hopefulness as positive psychological tools in helping people cope with anxiety and stress. These practices have also been considered beneficial in enhancing psychological health and well-being.
Despite growing knowledge that mindfulness meditation can enhance emotional wellbeing, very little is known about how it all works. How exactly does the act of meditation help us deal with the emotional rollercoaster of everyday life? Is mindfulness training actually “transferrable” to real world situations? What’s going on in the brain? Can we even measure it?
How does self-compassion protect depressed adolescents? Quieting the self may be the key.
A study led by Alexandra Martelli investigated whether more mindful individuals (based on self-report measure scores) would respond to social rejection with less distress and if certain neurological mechanisms in the brain’s prefrontal cortex can potentially explain the role of mindfulness in reduced social distress.
A research team from Valencia, Spain recently investigated the effects of a brief mindfulness-based intervention on both mood and biological markers on a sample of health professional students.
A new study by Kim and colleagues explored how compassion-based training can affect two self-regulatory styles and its relationship to neural, physiological, and behavioral responses.
Torre and colleagues recruited 70 HCWs from two hospitals in Rome, Italy for a 4-week course in yoga and mindfulness.
A team of researchers based in the perceived epicenter of the virus, Wuhan, China, recently tested whether a brief mindfulness intervention delivered through an app could be effective for reducing anxiety and protecting nightly sleep during the unfolding pandemic.
A new study investigated whether a brief mindfulness training designed to reduce physician burnout could be delivered through a smartphone app.
The current study reviewed the wider scientific literature for the role of yoga and mindfulness interventions in the treatment of severe mental illness.
The amount of research involving mindfulness interventions has grown exponentially; however, only in the last decade has mindfulness research involving adolescents rapidly increased.
Mindfulness and self-compassion are theorized to disrupt the maladaptive repetition of negative thoughts and emotions for patients with chronic or mental illnesses, who are particularly susceptible to psychosocial distress.
There is promising evidence that 70% of smokers would like to quit but less than 5% of unassisted attempts at quitting are actually successful.
In a recent pilot study by Suzette Glasner, Ph.D. and her team at the Integrated Substance Abuse Programs at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, they evaluated the effects of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) on reducing relapse susceptibility among stimulant-dependent adults receiving a contingency management (CM) intervention.
A major implication of the study suggests the distal effects of intensive retreat practice on respiration rates, a benefit not necessarily conferred by a brief, but full-day meditation session.
Researchers are exploring mindfulness-based interventions as a long-term treatment options to address the multitude of symptoms after cancer has been treated.
While the scientific study of mindfulness has exponentially increased over the past few decades, only recently has the scientific community focused on the effects of meditation training on biological aging.
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