Intervention Trial to Increase Meaning in Work and Reduce Burnout

Mayo Clinic

Status: Completed

Conditions: Burnout, Professional

Treatments: Behavioral: Small group meetings (COMPASS: COlleagues Meeting to Promote And Sustain Satisfaction)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04466423

13-004834

Details and patient eligibility

About

Collegiality is a one of the great virtues of physician-hood. Mutual support from colleagues to help deal with the challenges of being a physician has long helped physicians manage the stress related to practicing medicine and helped physicians derive meaning from their work. Unfortunately, increased productivity expectations and other changes to the practice of medicine over the last several decades have decreased the time physicians have to interact with colleagues and eroded the fabric of collegiality. Recent studies suggest burnout affects nearly half of U.S. physicians at any given point in time and has substantial personal and professional consequences. The steps organizations can take to promote collegiality are unknown. The goal of the present study is to evaluate the ability of an organizational intervention to encourage collegiality, shared experience, connectedness, and mutual support. This study builds on two prior intervention studies directed by the Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine Program on Physician Well-Being, the first focusing on a small group facilitated well-being curriculum and the second focusing on individual electronic tasks to prompt positive reflection and gratitude.

Enrollment: 125 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Senior Associate Consultants and Consultants in the Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine will be eligible for this study.

Exclusion criteria

• None beyond inclusion criteria.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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125 participants in 2 patient groups, including a placebo group

Small group intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Those randomized to the immediate intervention arm will be asked to meet approximately every other week for 6 months, covering 12 sessions. We will ask each group to meet in a relatively private setting (e.g., a restaurant near campus or a reserved meeting room), rather than more public spaces (e.g. river room, cafeteria) where interruptions are more likely.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Small group meetings (COMPASS: COlleagues Meeting to Promote And Sustain Satisfaction)

Control

Placebo Comparator group

Description:

Participants randomized to Arm 2 (delayed intervention) will be "wait listed" to begin sessions 6 months after the start of the study. This participation will be optional.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Small group meetings (COMPASS: COlleagues Meeting to Promote And Sustain Satisfaction)