Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction for Nurses

Nurses comprise one of the largest health care workforces, and the care provided can be seen in almost every setting. Nurses know the importance of promoting health, well-being, and stress management; however, this may translate into something other than nurses\u27 self-care. Stress and burnout are widespread phenomena in the nursing profession. Within healthcare, nursing has been found to be one of the most stressful occupations. Work-related stress experienced by nurses at work leads to burnout, and it can negatively impact patient care and the overall well-being of nurses. An essential step to support nurses working in the acute care setting suffering from work-related stress is to improve self-care through mindfulness. A quality improvement project to improve nurses’ self- care through Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is being developed in a medical- surgical unit at a Midwest hospital. The goal of this project is to increase nurses’ knowledge of the benefit of Mindfulness to improve nurses’ self-care. Watson’s Theory of Human Caring provides a framework to support the educational offering on the use of Mindfulness-Based techniques. A presurvey assessment will be conducted before the educational offering, and a postsurvey assessment to evaluate the effectiveness of the MBSR program to compare the results. Implementing the educational program on mindfulness could improve nurse well-being, ultimately leading to better patient outcomes