Better Together Physician Coaching: Mitigating Burnout in UME

NCT05822375 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: 23-0651
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 490
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Better Together Physician Coaching ("Better Together", or "BT"), a 4-month, web-based positive psychology multimodal coaching program was built to decrease burnout in medical trainees. Here, the investigators seek to understand it's efficacy in University of Colorado School of Medicine (CU SOM) clinicians Aim 1: Implement Better Together in undergraduate medical education settings for medical students Aim 2: Assess outcomes: primary: reduce burnout as measured by the Maslach Burnout Index (goal: 10% relative improvement), and secondary: self-compassion, imposter syndrome, flourishing, loneliness, and moral injury. Aim 3: Advance the field of coaching for clinicians through innovation and dissemination of evidence-based approaches to medical student wellbeing.

Conditions

Burnout, Professional

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Burnout as defined by the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI): Change from pre to post test

  The Maslach burnout inventory (MBI) is a 22-item measurement of worker burnout which assesses emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP), and personal fulfillment (PF) domains. Possible scores range from 0-6 on a Likert scale for each item. Scores of EE ≥ 27 points, DP ≥ 10, and PF \<33 would indicate a high degree of burnout. Scores of EE≤18 points, DP≤5 points, and PF≥40 points would indicate a low degree of burnout.

  Time Frame: pretest will occur prior to the intervention and posttest will occur after the 4-month intervention.

Secondary Outcomes (5)

• Self-Compassion as defined by Neff's Self Compassion Score Short Form (SCS-SF): Change from pre to post test

  pretest will occur prior to the intervention and posttest will occur after the 4-month intervention

• Moral Injury as defined by the Moral Injury Symptom Scale for Health Professions (MISS-HP) Change from pre to post test

  Time Frame: pretest will occur prior to the intervention and posttest will occur after the 4-month intervention

• Imposter Syndrome as defined by Young's Imposter Syndrome Symptoms Scale (YISS): Change from pre to post test

  pretest will occur prior to the intervention and posttest will occur after the 4-month intervention

• Flourishing as defined by the Secure Flourish Index (SFI): Change from pre to post test

  pretest will occur prior to the intervention and posttest will occur after the 4-month intervention

• Loneliness as defined by the UCLA 3-item Loneliness Scale: Change from pre to post test

  pretest will occur prior to the intervention and posttest will occur after the 4-month intervention

Study Arms (2)

Intervention

EXPERIMENTAL

Will be offered the BT coaching intervention over 4-months (Sept 1st 2023- Dec 31st 2023).

Behavioral: Better Together Physician Coaching

Waitlist control

NO INTERVENTION

Will be offered the coaching intervention following 4-month waitlist control (Feb 1st 2024 - May 31st 2024).

Interventions

Better Together Physician Coaching BEHAVIORAL

Better Together Physician Coaching Program thought-based coaching. This type of coaching focuses on thoughts and beliefs. It combines a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) model with mindfulness-based awareness and integrates theories of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), nonattachment, and radical questioning from Socratic and Greek philosophies. BT delivers a robust coaching experience via a 4-month web-based, group-coaching model. This novel program allows residents to participate as actively as they are inclined and able, offering flexibility via multiple modalities of coaching: twice weekly group coaching calls, unlimited anonymous written coaching, and weekly self-study modules that are housed on a secure members-only website.

Intervention

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years - 65 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• current medical students at one of the 5 US undergraduate medical education sites

You may not qualify if:

• non-medical students

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Colorado, Denver: lead

Study Sites (1)

University of Colorado School of Medicine

Aurora, Colorado, 80230, United States

Location

Related Publications (2)

• Villwock JA, Sobin LB, Koester LA, Harris TM. Impostor syndrome and burnout among American medical students: a pilot study. Int J Med Educ. 2016 Oct 31;7:364-369. doi: 10.5116/ijme.5801.eac4. Mantri S, Lawson JM, Wang Z, Koenig HG. Identifying Moral Injury in Healthcare Professionals: The Moral Injury Symptom Scale-HP. J Relig Health. 2020 Oct;59(5):2323-2340. doi: 10.1007/s10943-020-01065-w. Kelly-Hedrick M, Rodriguez MM, Ruble AE, Wright SM, Chisolm MS. Measuring Flourishing Among Internal Medicine and Psychiatry Residents. J Grad Med Educ. 2020 Jun;12(3):312-319. doi: 10.4300/JGME-D-19-00793.1. Fainstad T, Mann A, Suresh K, Shah P, Dieujuste N, Thurmon K, Jones CD. Effect of a Novel Online Group-Coaching Program to Reduce Burnout in Female Resident Physicians: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2022 May 2;5(5):e2210752. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.10752. Erratum In: JAMA Netw Open. 2022 Jun 1;5(6):e2220348. Maslach, C., Jackson, S. E., & Leiter, M. P. (1997). Maslach Burnout Inventory: Third edition. In C. P. Zalaquett & R. J. Wood (Eds.), Evaluating stress: A book of resources (pp. 191-218). Scarecrow Education. Neff KD. Self-Compassion Scale. PsycTESTS Dataset. 2012. doi:10.1037/t10178-000 Hughes ME, Waite LJ, Hawkley LC, Cacioppo JT. A Short Scale for Measuring Loneliness in Large Surveys: Results From Two Population-Based Studies. Res Aging. 2004;26(6):655-672. doi: 10.1177/0164027504268574.

  BACKGROUND

• Mann A, Fainstad T, Sullivan I, Ritz EM, SooHoo JR, Mechaber HF, Shah A. Medical students: They're not just little doctors! Impact of an online group-coaching program on medical student well-being: A randomized clinical trial. PLoS One. 2025 Aug 12;20(8):e0328546. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0328546. eCollection 2025.

  PMID: 40794712 DERIVED

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Burnout, Professional

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Occupational Stress; Occupational Diseases; Burnout, Psychological; Stress, Psychological; Behavioral Symptoms; Behavior

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: OUTCOMES ASSESSOR
• Masking Details: Data will be de-identified prior to analysis
• Purpose: PREVENTION
• Intervention Model: SEQUENTIAL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Model Details: This is a randomized controlled trial. All enrolled participants will complete the pretest baseline survey. After baseline data collection is completed, the participants will be randomized into either a control or intervention group. This randomized controlled trial study design will offer the BT coaching to the intervention group for the duration of 4-months (February 1st 2023- May 31st 2023) and to the control group for the duration of 4-months (September 1st 2023 - December 31st 2023). At two different timepoints, all participants will be offered surveys containing the following validated indices: burnout, imposter syndrome, self-compassion, moral injury, loneliness, and flourishing. All participants will be offered the survey at baseline- September 2023 (T0), post intervention- January 2024 (T1).

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: April 6, 2023
• First Posted: April 20, 2023
• Study Start: August 1, 2023
• Primary Completion: January 1, 2024
• Study Completion: September 1, 2024
• Last Updated: October 4, 2024

Record last verified: 2024-10

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

US (1)