Effectiveness of a One Day Self-Compassion Training for Pediatric Nurses’ Resilience

Background Resilience is a critical skill for nurses and other healthcare professionals, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet few nurses receive training that promotes emotional awareness and regulation, resilience, and self-compassion. Purpose The purpose of this study was to understand if attending a one-day workshop format of the Self Compassion for Healthcare Communities (SCHC) program would improve pediatric nurses' resilience, well-being, and professional quality of life. Design and methods Following a quasi-experimental design, pre, post, and follow-up surveys were acquired from 22 nurses who attended the training and 26 nurses who did not attend the training. In a linear mixed models regression analysis, changes in self-compassion, mindfulness, compassion, resilience, job engagement, professional quality of life (compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress), depression, anxiety and stress were analyzed between groups. Results Participants in the intervention exhibited significant increases in self-compassion, mindfulness, compassion to others, resilience and compassion satisfaction, and significant decreases in burnout, anxiety, and stress compared to the non-intervention group. Conclusions A one-day SCHC training program provides nurses with knowledge and skills to increase their resilience and support their emotional well-being and professional quality of life. Practice implications Nurses' schedules may hamper their ability to attend lengthy resilience trainings, yet the skills needed for resilience are crucial to decreasing burnout, empathy fatigue, and turnover. Offering an effective, one-day training provides an accessible alternative for nurses to gain knowledge and skills that increase resilience.