Nurse and Physician Stress Reduction: Learning Receptive Awareness Via EEG Feedback

For nurses and physicians, concerns exist relative to emotional exhaustion, burnout, and job dissatisfaction. In a study of medical students (median age 25 years), residents/fellows (median age 31 years), and early career physicians (median age 37 years), adverse manifestation rates were 30-40% for emotional exhaustion, 40-50% for burnout, 40-60% for depression, 7-9% for suicidal ideation, and 50-60% for fatigue. The rate of emotional exhaustion, a risk for burnout, has been found to be substantial in nurses in the U.S.

Mindfulness is an attitudinal expression of receptive awareness, wherein there is a distinction made between an experience occurring in the present moment and associated thoughts and interpretations about the experience. The thinking process itself is observed with all thoughts being treated as equal in value, without attraction or rejection. In two investigations that consisted of physicians and nurses, a high mindfulness score was associated with less stress, greater wellbeing, and a positive emotional tone among subjects. Mindfulness training has been associated with reductions in stress or burnout risk in studies that include nurses and physicians.

Neurofeedback (NFB) is a process in which an individual learns to intentionally alter their brainwave activity. NFB has been demonstrated to be useful for decreasing anxiety and enhancing attention.

As concerns with electroencephalographic (EEG) artifacts and the fact that technologies for providing quantitative EEG analysis are continuously evolving, the investigators selected the Bispectral Index (BIS) monitor (Aspect Medical Systems, Newton, MA) as a device to provide NFB signals. The Food and Drug Administration classifies the BIS monitor as an EEG monitoring device that monitors EEG signals, and it may be used for monitoring the effects of anesthetic and sedating agents. The credibility and validity of the device is supported by more than 2,500 citations in the National Library of Medicine that includes publications in the New England Journal of Medicine and Cochrane Systematic Review.

Reductions in BIS values have also been found for conditions other than pharmacologic sedation and include acupressure, stage I sleep, and relaxation using guided imagery.