Personal Resilience Skills to Improve Surgery Training

NCT06139614 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: Pro00113779
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 12
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The objective of the current study (PERSIST) is to 1) determine acceptability of an 8-session (16 week) group curriculum on personal resilience skills for residents in the Duke General Surgery Program, and 2) examine changes in professional fulfillment, depression symptomatology, anxiety symptomatology, and self-valuation, and positive wellbeing (flourishing) at the end of the program and 3-month follow-up compared to baseline, 3) examine performance on surgery training metrics compared to the mean performance of non-participants. Participants will be residents active in the Duke General Surgery Program. There will be one group of Junior Assistant Residents (JAR, N = 10) and one group of Senior Assistant Residents (SAR, N =10), which will be conducted separately. At baseline, all participants will complete questionnaires related personal resilience, including professional fulfillment (professional fulfillment, work exhaustion, interpersonal disengagement), depression symptoms, anxiety, symptoms, self-valuation, flourishing, and psychosocial working conditions. At post-treatment (end of session 8), participants will complete the baseline questionnaires (with the exception of psychosocial working conditions), as well as a questionnaire assessing acceptability of the group experience and content. The post-treatment questionnaires will be repeated as a 3-month follow-up. All study activities are considered low risk, and there the training is expected to have the benefit of teaching lasting skills to promote professional and personal resilience. To protect participant confidentiality, surgery staff and faculty will not have access linkage between study variables and participant identity.

Conditions

Well-Being, Psychological; Anxiety Depression

Keywords

Personal resilience; Professional Fulfillment; Positive Well-being

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (8)

• Program Acceptability as measured by participant attendance in mean percent

  Investigators will track participant attendance over the duration of the intervention and report in total mean percent.

  Intervention end - 16 weeks

• Program Acceptability as measured by Questionnaire

  A questionnaire rating of the experience and value of the 8 content topics in PERSIST using a scale of 5-50 (higher score = higher acceptability).

  Intervention end - 16 weeks

• Professional Well-being as measured by the Professional Fulfillment Index (PFI)

  Overall professional well-being will be assessed with the Professional Fulfillment Index (PFI), which is scored on a scale of 0-24 (higher score = better outcome).

  3 months post-intervention

• Personal Well-being as measured by the Self-Valuation (S-V) scale

  Personal well-being will be assessed with the Self-Valuation scale (S-V), which is scored on a scale of 0-16 (higher score = better outcome).

  3 months post-intervention

• Positive well-being as assessed by the Flourishing Scale (FS)

  Positive well-being will be assessed by the Flourishing Scale (FS), which is scored on a scale of 8-56 (higher score = better outcome).

  3 months post-intervention

• Exhaustion as measured by the Professional Fulfillment Index (PFI)

  Exhaustion from work will be assessed with the Professional Fulfillment Index (PFI), which is scored on a scale of 0-44 (higher score = worse outcome).

  3 months post-intervention

• Anxiety symptoms as measured by the General Anxiety Disorder-7 questionnaire (GAD-7)

  Anxiety symptoms will be assessed using the General Anxiety Disorder-7 questionnaire (GAD-7), which is scored on a scale from 0-21 (higher = worse outcome).

  3 months post-intervention

• Depression symptoms as measured by the 8-item version of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8)

  Depression symptoms will be assessed using the 8-item version of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8), which is scored on a scale from 0-24 (higher = worse outcome).

  3 months post-intervention

Secondary Outcomes (2)

• Clinical and professional competencies measured by milestone achievement in Entrustable Professional Activities (EPA)

  3 months post-intervention

• Safety outcomes as measured by mean number of Safety Reporting System (SRS) incidents

  3 months post-intervention

Study Arms (1)

Assistant Residents

EXPERIMENTAL

At baseline, all participants will complete questionnaires related personal resilience, including professional fulfillment (professional fulfillment, work exhaustion, interpersonal disengagement), depression symptoms, anxiety, symptoms, self-valuation, flourishing, and psychosocial working conditions. At post-treatment (end of session 8), participants will complete the baseline questionnaires (with the exception of psychosocial working conditions), as well as a questionnaire assessing acceptability of the group experience and content. The post-treatment questionnaires will be repeated as a 3-month follow-up.

Behavioral: PERSIST

Interventions

PERSIST BEHAVIORAL

PERSIST is adapted from empirically validated treatment of negative affect and low positive emotion. Skills Training 1 includes content across 4 sessions on 1) understanding emotions, 2) present-moment emotional awareness, 3) cognitive flexibility, and 4) countering avoidant and emotion-driven responses. Skills Training 2 includes content across 4 sessions on a) translating values to action, b) lower barriers to action, c) countering avoidance, and d) maintaining actions that support personal resilience. The classes will occur every other Wednesday, resulting in a 16-week intervention period.

Assistant Residents

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 25 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• The pilot cohort will be composed of junior assistant residents (JAR) and senior assistant residents (SAR) members of the Duke General Surgery Residency Program.

You may not qualify if:

• Because the PERSIST intervention is focused on coaching resilience to the challenges of clinical training, JAR and SAR who will be completing a research year during the intervention period will be excluded from participation.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Duke University: lead

Study Sites (1)

Duke University Medical Center

Durham, North Carolina, 27705, United States

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Psychological Well-Being

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Personal Satisfaction; Behavior

Study Officials

• Elisabeth Tracy, MD

  Duke University

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NA
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: PREVENTION
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Model Details: There will be one group of Junior Assistant Residents (JAR, N = 10) and one group of Senior Assistant Residents (SAR, N =10), which will be conducted separately. At baseline, all participants will complete questionnaires related personal resilience, including professional fulfillment (professional fulfillment, work exhaustion, interpersonal disengagement), depression symptoms, anxiety, symptoms, self-valuation, flourishing, and psychosocial working conditions. At post-treatment (end of session 8), participants will complete the baseline questionnaires (with the exception of psychosocial working conditions), as well as a questionnaire assessing acceptability of the group experience and content. The post-treatment questionnaires will be repeated as a 3-month follow-up.

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: November 15, 2023
• First Posted: November 18, 2023
• Study Start: August 16, 2023
• Primary Completion: March 31, 2024
• Study Completion: March 31, 2024
• Last Updated: April 29, 2024

Record last verified: 2024-04

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

US (1)