Effects of a Workplace Well-Being Program on Professional Quality of Life Among Health Care Personnel

A healthy, competent, and compassionate health care workforce is critical to ensure that health systems can deliver high-quality, safe patient care. Therefore, health care personnel need access to scalable, recurring, evidence-based training opportunities to bolster compassion, mitigate burnout, and enhance resiliency, ultimately improving their professional quality of life. This evaluation examined the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance of workplace-based well-being training opportunities offered by Atlanta's Resiliency Resource for frontline Workers (ARROW) program across two health systems.

ARROW formed through an academic practice partnership designed to introduce health care personnel to evidence-based mindfulness and compassion-based training opportunities: the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) and Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT). Trainees provided evaluation feedback immediately before, two weeks after, and three months after attending a CRM or CBCT event. The Short Professional Quality of Life Scale assessed compassion fatigue, burnout, and compassion satisfaction; the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale assessed resiliency.

ARROW hosted 59 training events that directly trained 761 health care personnel. Trainees' compassion fatigue scores, a key component of professional quality of life, decreased up to three months after engaging in programming by 0.32 points (p = 0.005, d = -0.14). Trainees who attended CBCT events were observed to have additional declines in compassion fatigue scores, by 0.45 points (p = 0.016, d = -0.215). No differences in burnout, compassion satisfaction, or resiliency were observed. ARROW mentored 68 health care personnel to become either CRM- or CBCT-certified instructors using a train-the-trainer approach. New trainers continued to offer well-being training opportunities and reached an additional 772 colleagues.

The findings from this evaluation indicate the broad reach and sustained impact ARROW had across health systems, engaging health care personnel in workplace well-being programming to bolster professional quality of life. Specifically, improvements in compassion fatigue scores following program participation corresponded to a small effect size; however, no changes in burnout, compassion satisfaction, or resiliency were seen after engaging in ARROW programming.