Mindful Ethical Practice and Resilience Academy: Equipping Nurses to Address Ethical Challenges

Area of Science:

• Nursing Ethics
• Healthcare Education
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• Ethical challenges in clinical practice negatively impact nurses, causing moral distress, burnout, and job dissatisfaction.
• These issues compromise patient safety, quality of care, and compassionate nursing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a longitudinal educational curriculum designed to improve nurses' skills in mindfulness, resilience, confidence, and competence.
• The curriculum aimed to better equip nurses to confront ethical challenges in their practice.

Main Methods:

• A prospective, repeated-measures study was conducted across two hospitals within a large academic medical system.
• Participants (192 intervention, 223 comparison) completed assessments before and after the educational intervention.

Main Results:

• The intervention significantly increased mindfulness, ethical confidence, ethical competence, work engagement, and resilience.
• Improved resilience and mindfulness correlated positively with moral competence and work engagement, while decreasing burnout and turnover intentions.
• Nurses reported reduced symptoms of depression and anger post-intervention, with benefits observed across various units and experience levels.

Conclusions:

• Experiential learning and simulation effectively enhance nurses' ability to navigate ethical adversity.
• Cultivating moral resilience through such interventions fosters a healthier work environment, improves staff retention, and elevates patient care quality.