Mindfulness Integrated Cognitive Behavioural Intervention: Effects on Palliative Cancer Care Professionals

Being a palliative cancer care professional is challenging and stressful. In recent decades, there has been more interest in mindfulness to improve overall well-being of healthcare professionals. Mindfulness integrated cognitive behavioural interventions (MICBI) are more practical, flexible and understandable than traditional psychological therapies alone. There is a dearth of studies in India with no psychological intervention in palliative cancer care professionals to date. The aim was to examine the effects of MICBI for professional care workers at palliative cancer care centres in Bengaluru city of Southern India.

A single group study design was adopted with pre, post and 3-month follow-up assessment with a sample of 25 participants working full-time at a hospice. The MICBI programme was for six sessions, once a week for 2-2.5 hours. Outcome variables were professional quality of life measures (burnout, secondary traumatic stress and compassion satisfaction), psychological well-being score and mindfulness skills score (assessed using Professional Quality of Life Scale-V.5, Psychological Well-Being Scale and Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire). Wilcoxon signed rank test and Friedman test analysed differences between pre, post and follow-up data.

The MICBI could significantly reduce burnout and secondary traumatic stress; it improved compassion satisfaction, psychological well-being and mindfulness skills; treatment gains were maintained at 3 months follow-up.

MICBI was feasible and effective for palliative cancer care professionals with implications for training, practice and future research.

The study was registered under the Clinical Trials Registry- India (CTRI) (number: CTRI/2018/03/019170).