Use of Death Cafes to Prevent Burnout in ICU Healthcare Employees (STOPTHEBURN)

Tulane University School of Medicine

Status: Completed

Conditions: Burnout, Psychological; Burnout, Professional; Burnout; Depression; Anxiety

Treatments: Behavioral: Death Cafe

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04347811

2019-908

Details and patient eligibility

About

Burnout affects a significant number of healthcare employees and leads to worsened mental health, increased job turnover, and patient safety events. Those caring for critically ill patients may be especially susceptible due to high patient mortality, long hours, and regular encounters with traumatic and ethical issues. Preliminary studies suggest that debriefing opportunities may reduce burnout through reflection on distressing patient events, enhancement of social support, and interprofessional collaboration. Death Cafés are a specific form of debriefing that focus on discussing death, dying, loss, and illness.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether biweekly Death Cafe group debriefing sessions can prevent burnout in ICU physicians and staff.

Enrollment: 340 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Physicians, nurses, pharmacists, or therapists working in the Intensive Care Unit and have worked for the full-time equivalent of at least 1 week in the preceding 4 weeks

Exclusion criteria

• Not physicians, nurses, pharmacists, or therapists
• Have worked less than the full-time equivalent of at least 1 week in the preceding 4 weeks

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

340 participants in 2 patient groups

Death Cafe Arm

Experimental group

Description:

Participants undergo biweekly Death Café sessions hosted by a trained psychotherapist for 3 months.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Death Cafe

Control Arm

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants do not undergo biweekly Death Café sessions hosted by a trained psychotherapist for 3 months.