The Stress Management and Resiliency Training (SMART) Program Is Associated with Sustained Improvement in Clinician Well-Being: Results from an Observational Cohort Study.

Résumé

BACKGROUND: Burnout negatively impacts clinicians, patients, and healthcare systems. We examined the immediate and sustained effects of an evidence-based, multi-modal Stress Management and Resiliency Training (SMART) Program on clinician well-being.METHODS: Clinicians who registered to participate in the SMART Program were invited to join an observational study and complete questionnaires before the program started, at two months (post-program), and at eight months (six months following program completion).RESULTS: We found significant improvements in well-being, burnout, perceived stress, stress coping, resilience, and self-compassion at 2 months (all < 0.001), with moderate-to-large effect sizes ( = 0.57 to 1.0). Significant benefits were maintained at 8 months, with small-to-moderate effect sizes ( = 0.41 to 0.65). Exploratory analyses found significant correlations between improvements in well-being from baseline to 8 months and the number of stress-management techniques used at 8 months ( = 0.53, < 0.0001) and the number of days on which participants practiced meditation for at least 10 min ( = 0.28, = 0.049).CONCLUSION: Participation in the SMART Program was associated with significant improvements in clinician well-being that persisted six months following program completion and was positively associated with the number of stress-management tools used and meditation practice.