Effects Of Mindfulness-Based Intervention on Psychological Health Among Jordanian Nurses Taking Care Patients With Covid-19

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), first reported in Wuhan China, has been described as the first pandemic contributed to a coronavirus that has drawn intense attention worldwide. Up to April 11th, 2020, at least 381 diagnosed cases and 7 deaths have been reported in Jordan (Jordanian Health Ministry, 2020). Facing this critical situation, nurses are struggling on the front line to manage patients with COVID-19, placing them at risk of contracting the infectious disease (World Health Organization (WHO), 2020).

Like other countries, health care providers in Jordan account for a significant share of their Covid-19 cases (Jordanian Health Ministry, 2020). Although Jordanian government has undertaken much efforts to provide healthcare providers with personal protective equipment and immunization to avoid contracting the disease, their psychological well-being, like in other countries, have been disregarded (Duan, & Zhu, 2020; Huffington & Williams, 2020). A combination of long shifts, understaffing, overwhelming workload, and lack of sleep may all contribute to stress and mental burden of these healthcare providers, compromising immune systems and make them more vulnerable to the infectious disease (Chen, et al., 2020; WHO, 2020). The psychological effect experienced by nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic was evident in the literature. Anxiety, stress, and depression were commonly reported by nurses during the COVID-19 pandemics (Pratiwi, et al., 2023) Nurses' health in hospital settings is the most important consideration for providing excellent patient care. To achieve the optimal outcomes for the patients and their families, it is required that nurses to be kept at the highest level of psychological health. Therefore, officials and those in charge of health institutions must find appropriate solutions to help nurses to cope with mental health problems. A possible solution to nurses' mental health problems may rest in promoting medical interventions such as mind- body interventions (Goyal, et al., 2014).

Mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) is one of the most popular mind-body therapy methods used recently in psychotherapy, which is strongly associated with promotion physical and psychological well-being, it is an effective method for reducing stress and improving health (Bartlett, et al., 2021). Pascoe et al. (2017) imagined it as a combination of five main components: act with awareness, internal observation and external experiences, being non-judgmental, description and labeling and not reacting to thoughts and feelings. Theoretically, practicing MBI develops mindfulness trait, and then relaxes the body and mind and helps reduce the response or reactivity to stressful situation, traumatic events and challenging experiences (Hofmann & Gómez, 2017). Many researchers have pointed to the effectiveness of in-person mindfulness training programs in reducing nurses' stress, anxiety, and depression in general health settings (Ghawadra, et al. 2020; Green & Kinchen, 2021; Lomas, et al. 2019; Ramachandran, et al. 2022; Sulosaari, et al. 2022).

Mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) as a Mind-body therapy, recently increasing its popularity in Jordan, are easily accessible, easy to learn and inexpensive (Yanyu, et al., 2020). For easily accessible and nonphysical contact training mode, they can be delivered quite efficiently by easy-to-carry electronic devices to healthcare providers (Kubo, et al., 2019; Wiseman, et al., 2018). M-Health-based intervention is an innovative approach of treatment delivery using mobile technologies such as cell phones (Kubo, et al., 2019). Mobile phones are widely used in Jordan, with the most Jordanians (95%) having a smart phone (Gazal, 2020). The widespread use of smart phones highlights their potential to deliver cost-effective mind-body therapies that can be easily integrated into the lives of busy healthcare providers who are unable to attend regular in-person training sessions (Kubo, et al., 2019; Wiseman, et al., 2018). It also provides a feasible and effective therapeutic way to optimize physical distancing during pandemics, which contributes to decrease the transmission of infection (Tukur et al., 2023) Although a wide array of research has been conducted examining the relationship between MBI and psychological health problems in different populations (McGee, et al., 2023), this study came as first study-to the best of research knowledge- to examine the effectiveness of m-health-based MBI on stress, anxiety, and depression among nurses taking care patients with COVID-19. Investigating the effects of MBI on psychological health in such nurses may contribute to the development of evidence-based methods and guidelines for enhancing the mental well-being of them during this unprecedented epidemic and may also enhance humanity's ability to respond to other emerging pandemics.

Design This was an experimental study using pretest post-test randomized controlled design.