Emotional Freedom Techniques on Burnout in Therapists (EFT)

April 24, 2025 updated by: Erin Peterson DHSc, University of Indianapolis

Examining the Effect of the Emotional Freedom Techniques on Burnout in Rehabilitation Therapists

The goal of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of Emotional Freedome Techniques (EFT) on burnout in rehabilitation therapists. The main question[s] it aims to answer [is/are]:

  1. Does a single session of EFT reduce burnout in therapists immediately and/or one month later as measured by the short version of the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT-S)?
  2. Does a single session of EFT reduce Subjective Units of Distress (SUDS) data related to burnout in therapists immediately and/or one month later?
  3. Do clinicians with more years of experience have overall lower levels of burnout as measured by the BAT-S?
  4. Are there significant differences in the level of burnout amongst occupational or physical therapists?

Participants will:

  • Complete the demographic survey using the Qualtrics link. Information pertaining to age, gender, years of work experience, professional discipline, workplace setting, etc. will be gathered.
  • Complete a short 12-item questionnaire (Burnout Assessment Tool - Short [BAT-S]) that immediately follows the demographic questions. Questions will be related to experiencing feelings of burnout.
  • Attend a free, live, virtual wellness session. Before the session begins, you will be asked to privately answer three questions related to current levels of work distress, despair, and anxiety using a Qualtrics link. During the wellness session, the research team consisting of the PI and student researchers will describe what Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is and how it is performed. The research team will then lead participants through EFT with you performing the technique on yourself.
  • Immediately following the session, you will be asked to privately answer the three questions relating to work distress, despair, and anxiety again using a Qualtrics link.
  • One month after completing the session, you will receive an email containing a Qualtrics link to answer the work distress, despair, and anxiety questions again, as well as the BAT-S in order for the researchers to collect follow-up data.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Healthcare employees experience various difficulties, and burnout is one of the most pressing issues in the field (Bridgeman et al., 2018; Knox et al., 2018). Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), commonly called "tapping," is an emerging psychophysiological intervention that combines elements from cognitive therapy, exposure therapy, and acupressure (Church, 2019; Church et al., 2022). The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of EFT on burnout in rehabilitation therapists. Participants will be members of the American Society of Hand Therapists (ASHT) who are actively employed as occupational therapy or physical therapy practitioners. To recruit participants, researchers will complete the ASHT research division's application for participant recruitment. If the application is denied, researchers will recruit participants through social media. Participants will attend a free, one-hour live virtual wellness session held on a virtual meeting platform. If they choose to participate in the study, they will be directed to a Qualtrics survey to complete the informed consent, demographics, and the Burnout Assessment Tool. During the session, the researchers will guide participants through EFT, collecting Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS) and expanded SUDS data immediately prior to and following the intervention. Additionally, researchers will collect follow-up data using the BAT-S, SUDS, and expanded SUDS questions one month later. Researchers will perform descriptive statistics to analyze demographic data and use SPSS with appropriate statistical tests to explore relationships between the BAT-S, SUDS, and expanded SUDS data from the pre, post, and follow-up data.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

18

Phase

  • 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
    • Indiana
      • Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, 46227
        • University of Indianapolis

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

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria: (a) the ability to read and speak English, (b) 18 years of age or older, and (c) actively working in direct patient care.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Exclusion criteria consisted of individuals who were not practicing therapists, such as managers, therapy aides, or technicians. Following initial recruitment efforts, the researchers were invited to conduct the virtual EFT session for therapy employees of a private practice. Due to this, the researchers expanded the inclusion criteria to include speech therapists employed at this facility. All other inclusion and exclusion criteria remained the same.

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: Treatment
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Subjective Units of Distress
Time Frame: before, immediately after, and at the one-month follow-up of the EFT session
The SUDS is a rating scale used with EFT to measure individuals' current subjective units of distress. The scale ranges from 0 to 10, with 0 being no distress and 10 being the highest level of distress (Church, 2019).
before, immediately after, and at the one-month follow-up of the EFT session
Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT)
Time Frame: before EFT session and at the one-month follow-up
The BAT is a self-report, Likert-scale questionnaire used to measure burnout. The developers divided burnout into four core scales: exhaustion, mental distance, cognitive impairment, and emotional impairment.
before EFT session and at the one-month follow-up

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

University of Indianapolis

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)

October 22, 2023

Primary Completion (Actual)

February 10, 2024

Study Completion (Actual)

April 21, 2025

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 24, 2025

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 24, 2025

First Posted (Actual)

May 2, 2025

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 2, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 24, 2025

Last Verified

April 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 01870

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

Only IPD used in the results publication

IPD Sharing Time Frame

Start date (now) until 1/1/2032

IPD Sharing Access Criteria

Upon request

IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type

  • STUDY_PROTOCOL
  • ICF

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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