A Mindfulness Self-Compassion Huddle Initiative for Emergency Room Nurses

This quality improvement initiative aimed to improve levels of compassion satisfaction (CS), burnout, and secondary traumatic stress (STS) among Emergency Room (ER) nurses. This project was implemented during shift huddles in a busy urban city ER. Adopted from a previous study conducted by authors Tripathi and Mulkey in 2023 where the authors incorporated mindfulness-based self-compassion (MBSC) exercises based on the teachings of Christopher Germer and Kristin Neff (2019). The authors discovered a significant improvement in Professional of Quality of Life (ProQOL-5) scores in CS, burnout, and STS when MBSC was implemented (Tripathi & Mulkey, 2023). The project was implemented over four weeks. All staff attending shift huddles participated in a brief five-minute deep breathing mindfulness and self-compassion exercise. The brief exercises were led by the DNP student and three ER Assistant Nurse Managers (ANMs). Anonymous ProQOL-5 surveys were distributed before the project started and after the project was completed. There were 57 pre-survey responses, which included 49 nurses, six Paramedics, and two midlevel providers. The post-survey sample of 56 participants consisted of 44 nurses, eleven paramedics, and one midlevel provider. The “SMART” goal for this project was to achieve a 10 percent improvement in ProQOL-5 scores, this included the subcategories of CS, burnout, and STS. The “SMART” goal for this project was not met and there were no statistically significant changes in scores from the pre- to the post- ProQOL-5 surveys. However, external variables may have altered outcomes. Overall, more than three-quarters of the staff found the intervention enjoyable and wished leadership would continue to implement it, determining there may still be implications for nursing practice.