Does a Phone-based Meditation Application Improve Mental Wellness in Emergency Medicine Personnel?

Emergency medicine is notorious for its high rate of burnout and mental health issues. The emergency department (ED) is a high paced work environment dealing with life and death issues. Employees in the ED work shift times that are not conducive to a natural circadian rhythm. All of these factors lead to high rates of burnout and overall dissatisfaction with their career choice. These are known downsides of a career in emergency medicine, but little effort is put into addressing this issue in everyday EDs.

Cell phones offer an easy and convenient means to participate in meditation. There are multiple evidence-based meditation apps available to cell phone users free of charge. Meditation has been shown to decrease burnout, rates of depression, and rates of anxiety. We hypothesize that weekly use of a meditation-based cell phone application will improve the mental health of emergency department employees as measured on various wellness inventories.

Study Overview

• Status: Unknown
• Conditions: Depression; Stress; Burnout, Professional; Anxiety
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Cleveland Clinic Stress Free Now Meditations For Healers

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Anticipated): 100
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Keith Lambert, MD; Phone Number: 7206294136; Email: KLambert@asecnsion.org

Study Locations

• United States
  • Texas
    • Austin, Texas, United States, 78701
      • Recruiting
      • University of Texas Austin
      • Contact: Keith Lambert, MD; Phone Number: 7206294136 720-629-4136; Email: KLambert@asecnsion.org

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 75 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Employment in the Emergency Department (with at least 8 shifts a month at Dell Seton Medical Center or Seton Medical Center) as either an attending physician, resident physician, or nurse
• Age greater than/equal to 18 years old and younger than 75 years old
• Must own a mobile phone operating on the iOS system

Exclusion Criteria:

• Already use a phone-based meditation app on a weekly basis
• Currently undergoing psychological treatment in the form of weekly therapy or psychotropic medications

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Control
Active Comparator: Intervention	Behavioral: Cleveland Clinic Stress Free Now Meditations For Healers; Phone-based meditation application

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in depression score	Beck Depression Inventory, numeric score of 0-63 with a score of 63 being the most depressed	90 and 180 days
Change in anxiety score	Beck Anxiety Inventory, numeric score of 0-63 with a score of 63 being the most anxious	90 and 180 days
Change in stress levels	Perceived Stress Scale, numeric score of 0-40 with a score of 40 being the most stressed	90 and 180 days
Change in burnout level	Maslach Burnout Inventory, measures level of stress on a numeric scale	90 and 180 days, numeric scale between 0 and 6 with 6 being the highest score

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Texas at Austin
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Keith Lambert, MD, University of Texas at Austin

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Coulon SM, Monroe CM, West DS. A Systematic, Multi-domain Review of Mobile Smartphone Apps for Evidence-Based Stress Management. Am J Prev Med. 2016 Jul;51(1):95-105. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2016.01.026. Epub 2016 Mar 15.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): December 19, 2018
• Primary Completion (Anticipated): August 1, 2019
• Study Completion (Anticipated): June 1, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: January 16, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 17, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): January 22, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): January 24, 2019
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 22, 2019
• Last Verified: January 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavioral Symptoms; Pathologic Processes; Disease Attributes; Stress, Psychological; Occupational Stress; Occupational Diseases; Burnout, Psychological; Emergencies; Burnout, Professional
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2018-04-0089

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