Mindful Mental Training for Surgeons to Enhance Resilience and Performance Under Stress

March 7, 2022 updated by: University of California, San Francisco

Mindfulness Training to Improve Mental Health, Stress and Performance In Physicians

Background:

Burnout and overwhelming stress are growing issues among surgeons and are associated with mental illness, attrition and diminished patient care. Among surgical trainees, burnout and distress are alarmingly prevalent but high inherent mindfulness has been shown to decrease the risk of depression, suicidal ideation, burnout and overwhelming stress by more than 75%. In other high-stress populations formal mindfulness training has been shown to improve mental health and buffer overwhelming stress and yet this approach has not been tried in surgery.

The aim of this study is to evaluate feasibility and acceptability of modified mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) training among PGY-1 surgery residents and to obtain initial evidence of efficacy in regard to well-being and performance.

Design: A pilot randomized clinical trial of modified MBSR versus an active control.

Setting: Residency training program, tertiary academic medical center.

Participants: PGY-1 surgery residents.

Intervention:

Weekly two-hour modified MBSR classes (compared to an active control) and 20 minutes of suggested daily home practice over an eight-week period.

Main Outcomes and Measures:

Primary outcome is feasibility, assessed along six domains (demand, implementation, practicality, acceptability, adaptation and integration), using focus groups, interviews, surveys, attendance, daily practice time and subjective self-report of experience.

Secondary outcomes include perceived stress, mindfulness and executive function (specifically working memory capacity), followed by psychosocial well-being (burnout, depression, resilience), performance (motor skills testing) and functional brain scans focused on areas associated with reappraisal as a surrogate for emotional control.

This study seeks to demonstrate the feasibility of mindfulness training in surgery PGY-1s while simultaneously providing preliminary quantitative data on the effects of mindfulness training in a randomized, controlled setting. Data will inform modifications to the MBSR curriculum that enhance feasibility and inform sample size calculations for subsequent, adequately-powered RCTs which will likely need to be multi-center trials.

Results could potentially impact formal medical training, the mental health of providers at every level, and the overall quality of patient care.

Study Overview

Status

Status

Indicates the current recruitment status or the expanded access status.
Completed

Conditions

Conditions

The disease, disorder, syndrome, illness, or injury that is being studied. On ClinicalTrials.gov, conditions may also include other health-related issues, such as lifespan, quality of life, and health risks.

Intervention / Treatment

Intervention / Treatment

A process or action that is the focus of a clinical study. Interventions include drugs, medical devices, procedures, vaccines, and other products that are either investigational or already available. Interventions can also include noninvasive approaches, such as education or modifying diet and exercise.

Detailed Description

Mounting evidence shows that burnout, a critical metric for dissatisfaction and distress, is a growing problem within medicine. Burnout is a syndrome associated with worse physician performance, patient outcomes, and hospital economics.The quadruple aim of healthcare underscores that physician fulfillment is a critical part of any sustainable reform and appropriately frames physician burnout and fulfillment as issues that impact everyone, not just individual providers.

Burnout is believed to arise from a mismatch between expectations and reality, with more than half of practicing physicians and trainees reported to suffer from this problem. Among general surgery residents, the prevalence of burnout is estimated at 69% and dramatically increases the odds of both overwhelming stress and distress symptoms. The relationship between overwhelming stress and burnout is particularly concerning because extensive evidence links overwhelming stress to detrimental effects on learning, memory, decision-making, and performance.

A recent meta-analysis suggests that stress management/mindfulness interventions are particularly effective at addressing burnout on the individual level. Small cohort studies and controlled trials have shown mindfulness-based interventions to be effective at reducing stress and burnout in medical students, primary care physicians, internists, and other healthcare providers.

In general surgery trainees, inherent mindfulness tendencies (shown to increase following mindfulness training), decrease the risk of burnout, overwhelming stress, and distress symptoms by 75% or more. This suggests that mindfulness tendencies may already be used, albeit unconsciously, to cope within the high-stress culture of surgery. Indeed, isolated studies of performance strategies that involve emotional regulation, and focused attention (qualities shared with mindfulness training) have also demonstrated improvements in surgeons' technical performance and perceived stress.

Mindfulness meditation training involves the cultivation of moment-to-moment awareness of thoughts, emotions and sensations (also known as interoception), the development of non-reactivity in response to stimuli (also known as emotional regulation), and the enhancement of perspective-taking regarding oneself and others. The most scientifically studied form of mindfulness training is the secular Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn in the 1970s. MBSR is formally trained through an eight-week codified curriculum and has been shown to decrease stress and burnout, protect executive function, and enhance performance in multiple high-stress populations.

In spite of such evidence, mindfulness training among surgeons has only occasionally been suggested or informally pursued, partly due to a disconnect between the indefatigable stoicism of surgery and mindfulness, which is often perceived as relaxation rather than a skill to enhance resilience. Moreover, the time pressures of surgical training make additional responsibilities and new curricula seem impossible.

In fact, the global effects of mindfulness training, as opposed to other interventions that target a single outcome, may prove to be its biggest asset. Individuals don't manifest the effects of overwhelming stress and burnout in identical ways, making an up-stream intervention with myriad downstream effects the most efficient method for intervening on large, diverse populations. Moreover, while other forms of skills training or mental health interventions require recurrent time away from work, mindfulness training involves an initial investment of time but then can be strengthened through practice in everyday settings - within the daily life, not separate from it.

To systematically examine the feasibility of formal mindfulness training during surgery internship at a tertiary academic center, we undertook the "Mindful Surgeon" pilot study. Our secondary goal is to gather preliminary evidence of efficacy, to guide future design of a scalable, adequately powered trial.

Study Type

Study Type

Describes the nature of a clinical study. Study types include interventional studies (also called clinical trials), observational studies (including patient registries), and expanded access.
Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

Enrollment

The number of participants in a clinical study. The "anticipated" enrollment is the target number of participants that the researchers need for the study.
44

Phase

Phase

The stage of a clinical trial studying a drug or biological product, based on definitions developed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The phase is based on the study's objective, the number of participants, and other characteristics. There are five phases: Early Phase 1 (formerly listed as Phase 0), Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, and Phase 4. Not Applicable is used to describe trials without FDA-defined phases, including trials of devices or behavioral interventions.
  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • San Francisco, California, United States, 94143
        • University of California San Francisco

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

The key requirements that people who want to participate in a clinical study must meet or the characteristics they must have. Eligibility criteria consist of both inclusion criteria (which are required for a person to participate in the study) and exclusion criteria (which prevent a person from participating). Types of eligibility criteria include whether a study accepts healthy volunteers, has age or age group requirements, or is limited by sex.

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • UCSF surgical interns entering training. Do not meet exclusion criteria.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Current personal mindfulness practice, medications with CNS effects, lifetime history of a mental disorder, acute or chronic immune or inflammatory disorders, pregnancy, breast-feeding or implanted MRI-incompatible metal.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Double

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Participant Group / Arm

A group or subgroup of participants in a clinical trial that receives a specific intervention/treatment, or no intervention, according to the trial's protocol.
Intervention / Treatment

Intervention / Treatment

A process or action that is the focus of a clinical study. Interventions include drugs, medical devices, procedures, vaccines, and other products that are either investigational or already available. Interventions can also include noninvasive approaches, such as education or modifying diet and exercise.
Experimental: Mental Training for Surgeons
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR, as published elsewhere extensively) slightly modified by shortening the eight weekly classes to 2 hours each and the home practice requirement to 20 minutes. Taught by a veteran MBSR teacher with greater than 10,000 hours of personal practice and nearly 10 years of formal MBSR teaching experience.
Behavioral: Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction - modified
already described
Other Names:
  • MBSR
Active Comparator: The Mind of a Surgeon
8 weekly classes of 2 hours each with group reading and discussion of selected articles and stories about the ethos and experience of becoming a surgeon. Designed and administered by a surgical faculty member with extensive experience in surgical education and scholarly work in the area of the 'surgical personality'.
Behavioral: Active listening and reading
group reading, listening and discussion of articles pertaining to the development and experience of the surgical personality

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Primary Outcome Measures

In a clinical study's protocol, the planned outcome measure that is the most important for evaluating the effect of an intervention/treatment. Most clinical studies have one primary outcome measure, but some have more than one.
Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in Stress
Time Frame: baseline, 8wks (post-intervention),12-month follow-up
Cohen's Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)
baseline, 8wks (post-intervention),12-month follow-up

Secondary Outcome Measures

Secondary Outcome Measures

In a clinical study's protocol, a planned outcome measure that is not as important as the primary outcome measure for evaluating the effect of an intervention but is still of interest. Most clinical studies have more than one secondary outcome measure.
Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in Executive Function
Time Frame: baseline, 8wks (post-intervention),12-month follow-up
Executive function as assessed via working memory capacity, cognitive control and executive composite components of the NIH EXAMINER battery.
baseline, 8wks (post-intervention),12-month follow-up

Other Outcome Measures

Other Outcome Measures

For clinical trials, a planned measurement described in the protocol that is used to determine the effect of an intervention/treatment on participants. For observational studies, a measurement or observation that is used to describe patterns of diseases or traits, or associations with exposures, risk factors, or treatment. Types of outcome measures include primary outcome measure and secondary outcome measure.
Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in Motor skills
Time Frame: baseline, 8wks (post-intervention),12-month follow-up
Performance as assessed by the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) modules
baseline, 8wks (post-intervention),12-month follow-up
Change in Functional neuroanatomic changes
Time Frame: baseline, 8wks (post-intervention),12-month follow-up
Functional changes in areas associated with reappraisal/emotional regulation (amygdala, hippocampus, reward circuitry, appraisal pathway) as evidenced by fMRI BOLD and DTI brain scans analyzed by whole brain and a prior region of interest approaches.
baseline, 8wks (post-intervention),12-month follow-up
Change in Psychological well-being
Time Frame: baseline, 8wks (post-intervention),12-month follow-up
burnout (Maslach burnout inventory), depression (PHQ-9), resilience (ER89), Grit (GRIT-S), mindfulness (CAMS-R)
baseline, 8wks (post-intervention),12-month follow-up

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Sponsor

The organization or person who initiates the study and who has authority and control over the study.
University of California, San Francisco

Investigators

Investigators

A researcher involved in a clinical study. Related terms include site principal investigator, site sub-investigator, study chair, study director, and study principal investigator.
  • Principal Investigator: Carter Lebares, MD, University of California, San Francisco

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

Study Start

The actual date on which the first participant was enrolled in a clinical study. The "anticipated" study start date is the date that the researchers think will be the study start date.
June 1, 2017

Primary Completion (Actual)

Primary Completion

The date on which the last participant in a clinical study was examined or received an intervention to collect final data for the primary outcome measure. Whether the clinical study ended according to the protocol or was terminated does not affect this date. For clinical studies with more than one primary outcome measure with different completion dates, this term refers to the date on which data collection is completed for all the primary outcome measures. The "anticipated" primary completion date is the date that the researchers think will be the primary completion date for the study.
June 30, 2018

Study Completion (Actual)

Study Completion

The date on which the last participant in a clinical study was examined or received an intervention/treatment to collect final data for the primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, and adverse events (that is, the last participant's last visit). The "anticipated" study completion date is the date that the researchers think will be the study completion date.
June 30, 2018

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

First Submitted

The date on which the study sponsor or investigator first submitted a study record to ClinicalTrials.gov. There is typically a delay of a few days between the first submitted date and the record's availability on ClinicalTrials.gov (the first posted date).
May 1, 2017

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

The date on which the study sponsor or investigator first submits a study record that is consistent with National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review criteria. The sponsor or investigator may need to revise and submit a study record one or more times before NLM's QC review criteria are met. It is the responsibility of the sponsor or investigator to ensure that the study record is consistent with the NLM QC review criteria.
May 2, 2017

First Posted (Actual)

First Posted

The date on which the study record was first available on ClinicalTrials.gov after National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review has concluded. There is typically a delay of a few days between the date the study sponsor or investigator submitted the study record and the first posted date.
May 5, 2017

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

Last Update Posted

The most recent date on which changes to a study record were made available on ClinicalTrials.gov. There may be a delay between when the changes were submitted to ClinicalTrials.gov by the study's sponsor or investigator (the last update submitted date) and the last update posted date.
March 22, 2022

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

The most recent date on which the study sponsor or investigator submitted changes to a study record that are consistent with National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review criteria. It is the responsibility of the sponsor or investigator to ensure that the study record is consistent with the NLM QC review criteria.
March 7, 2022

Last Verified

Last Verified

The most recent date on which the study sponsor or investigator confirmed the information about a clinical study on ClinicalTrials.gov as accurate and current. If a study with a recruitment status of recruiting; not yet recruiting; or active, not recruiting has not been confirmed within the past 2 years, the study's recruitment status is shown as unknown.
March 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

Other Study ID Numbers

Identifiers or ID numbers other than the NCT number that are assigned to a clinical study by the study's sponsor, funders, or others. These numbers may include unique identifiers from other trial registries and National Institutes of Health grant numbers.
  • 16-19688

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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