We are delighted that second year doctoral candidates in psychology at XAVIER UNIVERSITY now receive the StressPal Frontline: Essential Resilience Self-Care and Burnout Prevention program and curriculum support in their graduate training, engage in their dedicated team community and have access to the stress relief resources.
Wisconsin League of Nurses cares about the resilience and well-being of all nurses. President Marijo Rommelfaengel presided over the Spring Conference held April 12 in Eau Claire, WI. which featured live educational presentations by Dr. Keith Rischer (KeithRN), Kristin Waite-Labott, BSN, RN, CARN, and Pennie Sempell, JD, CEO and co-author of StressPal Frontline: Essential Resilience Self-Care and Burnout Prevention. The theme of the conference was Nurse Strong: Supporting and Empowering Professional Nurses. Pennie engaged attendees in an interactive workshop focused on expanding the concept of self-care to include acquiring competence in leading intervention strategies to safeguard and build psychological flexibility and resilience. These interventions can also be rapidly applied in the heat of the moment, in pressured situations and interactions, to navigate stressors and defuse the stress response. The StressPal Frontline gives healthcare and frontline organizations a ready-to-deploy formal program and peer engagement platform to optimize wellness initiatives and support retention, where nurses want to stay.
Our mid-program data was presented at George Mason University’s Stakeholder’s Summit. It was a pleasure to meet the GMU research team.
We appreciate leadership at HCA who have championed our stress resilience intervention program in their cohorts. In partnership with HCA/St. Lucie Hospital, a pilot is underway with family medicine residents and staff, who are participating in the StressPal Frontline program to upskill in leading flexibility-based interventions that can be applied anywhere, anytime to safeguard clinicians’ valuable asset of resilience.
Like physicians, residents frequently enter the profession with above-average levels of resilience. Studies reported by Press Ganey and others show that resilience was on the decline in physicians since 2022. Burnout rates have started to drop in physicians, but remain elevated in residents, according to some studies.
What is resilience? Resilience is a complex brain phenomenon that we know to be learned (since childhood) and dynamic. It can be strengthened with focused training, and it can deteriorate under persistent external stressors, and our own stress-triggered responses. Our capacity for psychological flexibility is closely related to stress resilience, and is protective of it.
Well studied best practices methodologies to strengthen resilience – delivered 1:1, in small groups and in digital formats – include Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). The high production-value StressPal Frontline program uses interactive video technology and game-like features in an action-based learning model. It is strictly grounded in ACT, with an integration of CBT and MBCT, with ongoing clinician-led mindfulness and stress relief resources.
What we developed at StressPal is an innovative learning environment where learners confidentially engage (nickname only on sign-up) in structured, incremental learning in bite-sized modules, at their own pace, over 6 weeks (typical) before claiming a bundle of 12 professional continuing education credits, and 12 interprofessional credits. In addition, their own customized dedicated community is a great place for leaders and mentors to disseminate their wellness resources and hear what their learners have to say, in an anonymous setting.
In Albuquerque, the Coalition for Physician Well-being held an informative summit. Interest was keen in the materials that Pennie Sempell presented in our BreakAway sessions.
StressPal team members Karen Knecht MSN, RN-BC and Pennie Sempell, JD, CEO, were delighted to exhibit at Texas Nurses Association and hear the stories and concerns of so many nurses. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has passed, nurse leaders report that attrition and burnout remain high. The potential safety risk to patients – exhaustion, miscommunication, medical errors – was mentioned by several attendees. Several participants commented that new career nurses seem to be at a higher risk for distress and intent to leave the profession. Nurse educators reported that it is very difficult for them to track what happens to nurses once they graduate, as response rates to follow-up surveys are quite low. Across the board, nurses, educators and nurse leaders felt that a structured program to train nurses and students in cutting-edge, best practices strategies to build cognitive and behavioral competencies in pressured situations and interactions, would be a valuable resource.
It is our honor to provide stress resilience benefits to nurse recipients internationally of The DAISY Foundation award, in Memory of J. Patrick Barnes. Nurses are the backbone of medicine. Their compassionate care makes a world of difference for patients.
