Impact of Kindness Videos in Health Care Settings

An Exploratory Study of the Impact of Kindness Videos in Health Care Settings

This study builds on earlier work assessing the impact of kindness media on viewers' emotional responses. Using images of kindness and connection, as well as other content, we will test its impact on emotions and behavior in the field. The setting is in healthcare, specifically a pediatric dental clinic. Using simple scales, participants anonymously rate themselves on a variety of emotions, watch a television for 8 minutes, and then complete the self-assessment. An honorarium is provided for participation.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Emotions; Behavior; Altruism
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Kindness Media

Detailed Description

The present study builds on the earlier work with a focused application of inspiring content in health care settings. It is well described that health care providers, including doctors, nurses, and other staff members) have high rates of burnout, depression, and suicide-approximately twice that of the general population. In addition to the lower quality of life for the individual health care provider, this burnout problem has consequences for the patient, including heightened number of medical errors.

Patients, of course, also have significant stressors in their lives. Perhaps, those center on health-related issues, or are more general in nature. In the general population, it is known that anxiety, perceived stress, opiate abuse, and suicide are all rising.

From the patients' perspective, it is important to encourage them to adapt behaviors and attitudes that will benefit themselves as well as others. It has been shown that being kind and compassionate can yield positive impacts on health: people who volunteer regularly, for example, have death rates 20-40% lower than those who do not. Another facet of inducing kindness and compassion is kindness towards oneself. In health care settings, behavioral modification is very challenging. One way to rethink that approach is teaching and illustrating to patients how kindness to oneself is a necessity. Kindness to oneself encompasses following physician instructions as well as general health practice. By providing inspiring visual content to both patients and providers, it is believed that at least additive if not synergistic interaction will occur with simultaneous promotion of kindness, compassion, joy and love for both groups.

To date, multiple publications have pointed to the observation that various types of media can inspire viewers such that they are "moved" or "touched" or "elevated." Most of these studies have focused on the use of single films from several minutes long to full length feature films.

Much of the above cited research has been done in a laboratory or structured research setting. While very valuable, this research plan focuses on a "real world" setting, i.e., with patients and practitioners at the source in their work environments. The first step is to measure responses from both providers and patients.

C. Objectives

1. Quantify the response to videos depicting kindness, compassion, connection, joy, and love for both patients (or caregivers) and for health care staff.
2. Compare these responses to the standard content that the site uses.
3. Determine the impact of these videos on a measure of generosity.
4. Obtain qualitative feedback on the content in the effort to improve the content.

D. Hypothesis

1. Kindness media both moves and provides a significant lift in emotional state for both sets of viewers (providers and patients).
2. Compared to what is usually shown, kindness media has significant impact on emotional state.
3. Viewers will prefer to see more kindness media upon future visits.

Design:

Open, randomized, comparator-controlled study of kindness media versus commercial media on emotions and behavior. Parents and staff of the clinic are recruited as participants. Surveys with self-ratings are completed before and then after watching either kindness media or commercial (standard) children's media for 8 minutes.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 53
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Connecticut
    • New London, Connecticut, United States, 06333
      • Children Dental Associates of New London County

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 14 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

- Ability to give consent and complete forms

Exclusion Criteria:

• none

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

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

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Kindness media; Short videos of kindness media. As part of a program entitled EnSpire®, this media consists of short videos that display acts of kindness and compassion that are edited together into a single reel.	Other: Kindness Media; As described above, the intervention is a series of short videos that display acts of kindness or ideas about kindness. These videos are edited together into one reel that was 8 minutes long.; Other Names: EnSpire®
Active Comparator: Standard television; Children's commercial programming--as the control condition, participants watched commercial children's programming such as Disney, Nickelodeon, etc.	Other: Kindness Media; As described above, the intervention is a series of short videos that display acts of kindness or ideas about kindness. These videos are edited together into one reel that was 8 minutes long.; Other Names: EnSpire®

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Emotional responses	Set of questions regarding self-assessed emotional states including happiness, feeling calm, grateful, compassionate, optimistic, sad, irritated, or anxious. Scored 1-5 with "1" = not at all and "5"= a lot.	immediately after intervention

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Number of participants who donated	Measurement of donation--participants are asked whether or not they would be willing to donate to a family in need. The number of donations in each intervention group is counted.	Immediately after intervention

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Envision Kindness Inc
• Collaborators: Penn State University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): May 1, 2019
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 15, 2020
• Study Completion (Actual): September 30, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 28, 2020
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 4, 2020
• First Posted (Actual): August 7, 2020

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 22, 2022
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 21, 2022
• Last Verified: March 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: behavior; emotions; altruism; kindness; generosity
• Other Study ID Numbers: EK-002

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