Effectiveness of Positive Psychology and Meditation Interventions on Nurses’ Wellbeing and Patient Care: An Enhanced Cluster Randomised-Controlled Trial

Abstract Objectives Nurses provide care for patients, often putting patients’ needs above their own and there is an urgent need to identify evidence-based ways of supporting both nurse wellbeing and patient care. We evaluated a meditation wellness and compassion intervention and a positive psychology wellness and compassion intervention. Method We used a randomised controlled trial design (with waitlist control) enhanced by qualitative interviews and patient experience assessments with 247 nurses/midwives and 81 patients from 52 medical/surgical hospital wards. The interventions involved three full-day workshops over 4–6 weeks. The meditation intervention focused on cultivating mindfulness, kindness, compassion and self-compassion. The positive psychology intervention focused on enhancing skills such as goal setting and aligning strengths and values. We used a multi-source, multi-method approach with repeated measures to provide a comprehensive evaluation of both interventions. Results Improvements in the nurses’ wellbeing and self-compassion were found for both interventions, compared to a waitlist control, with the meditation intervention also reducing avoidance of uncomfortable experiences. All improvements were maintained at 6 months. Nurses’ practice of techniques was associated with better outcomes. Patients of nurses in the meditation intervention reported greater compassionate care, whereas patients of nurses in the positive psychology intervention reported greater confidence in care. From interviews we found a focus on physical wellbeing and greater awareness of the body in the meditation intervention and a focus on knowledge and skills in the positive psychology intervention. Conclusion There is evidence to support both wellbeing and compassion interventions, and integrating the two may be an effective way forward. Preregistration The study was pre-registered with Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12617000677303).