Altern Ther Health Med. 2023 May;29(4):128-133.
Burnout is commonly understood as resulting from chronic stress at work. It may have several consequences for the well-being and health of the worker. As a dimension of burnout, emotional exhaustion appears to be predicted mostly by work overload, interpersonal conflicts, and the inadequate use of skills. Emotional exhaustion is considered to be the affective component of burnout and may cause depersonalization. Burnout seems to be highly prevalent among nurses and more so during the COVID-19 pandemic. To address the new demands that the pandemic has placed on health care systems, nurses must be provided specific training in stress coping techniques. Qigong is an applied psychophysiological feedback technique that can be done independently by the practitioner; it enables the user to learn how to control their bodily functions and processes. As such, the objective of this study is to understand if qigong can be used as a complementary therapy for emotional exhaustion in nurses and if it can be implemented during critical events such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
A total of 44 nurses aged between 27 and 54 years (90.9% female), with high levels of emotional exhaustion, were randomized into intervention and control groups. The "white ball" system of qigong, led by a traditional Chinese medicine specialist, was taught to participants in the intervention group for 4 weeks. After this period, participants had 4 weeks for self-practice. The Maslach Burnout Inventory was used to capture the nurses' level of emotional exhaustion at the beginning and end of the experimental period, as well as after the 4-week self-practice period.
The results showed that 70% of the participants in the intervention group had significantly decreased emotional exhaustion levels, which reduced from high to either moderate (55%) or low (15%) after the experimental phase. Moreover, these benefits were maintained after the 4 weeks of self practice.
The results of this study suggest that qigong may be used as a complementary tool to mitigate burnout (including that induced by COVID-19) among nurses, thus improving health care services and capacity.
burnout 通常被理解为工作中慢性压力的结果。它可能对工人的福祉和健康产生多种影响。作为 burnout 的一个维度，情绪耗竭似乎主要由工作过载、人际冲突和技能使用不足来预测。情绪耗竭被认为是 burnout 的情感成分，可能导致去人性化。 burnout 在护士中似乎非常普遍，尤其是在 COVID-19 大流行期间。为了应对大流行给医疗保健系统带来的新需求，必须为护士提供特定的应对压力技巧培训。气功是一种应用心理生理反馈技术，可以由从业者独立完成；它使使用者能够学习如何控制自己的身体功能和过程。因此，本研究的目的是了解气功是否可以作为护士情绪耗竭的补充疗法，以及它是否可以在 COVID-19 等重大事件期间实施。
共有 44 名年龄在 27 至 54 岁之间（90.9%为女性）、情绪耗竭程度较高的护士被随机分为干预组和对照组。由一名中医专家教授干预组的“白球”气功，为期 4 周。在此期间结束后，参与者有 4 周的时间进行自我练习。使用 Maslach 倦怠量表在实验期开始和结束时以及在 4 周的自我练习期后，评估护士的情绪耗竭水平。
结果显示，干预组有 70%的参与者情绪耗竭水平显著降低，从高到中（55%）或低（15%）。此外，这些益处在 4 周的自我练习后仍得以维持。
这项研究的结果表明，气功可能被用作减轻护士 burnout（包括由 COVID-19 引起的 burnout）的补充工具，从而改善医疗保健服务和能力。
