Effects of mindfulness decompression therapy on mental health and job burnout among nurses working in the frontline of the novel coronavirus pandemic: A retrospective study

OBJECTIVES: As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic continues to spread worldwide, nucleic acid detection is a key step in controlling it. Psychological issues and job burnout of nurses working in nucleic acid sampling roles for long periods have become apparent. This study aimed to explore the effects of mindfulness decompression therapy on mental health and job burnout in front‐line nurses working in nucleic acid sampling during the pandemic. METHODS: Nucleic acid sampling frontline nurses who were positive for burnout on both the Symptom Checklist‐90 (SCL‐90) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory‐General Scale (MBI‐GS) were selected as the participants. Frontline nurses in the nucleic acid testing area who received routine psychological nursing intervention from June 2020 to April 2021 were used as the control group. Nurses who received both routine psychological nursing and mindfulness decompression therapy from May 2021 to December 2021 formed the “mindfulness” subject group. We compared the two groups' primary outcome measures of SCL‐90 and MBI‐GS scores. RESULTS: Before the intervention, there were no significant differences between the two groups in general data, SCL‐90 scores, and MBI‐GS scores. After the mindfulness decompression therapy, according to SCL‐90 and MBI‐GS scales, psychological distress and job burnout of nurses in the mindfulness group were significantly better than those in the control group. CONCLUSION: Mindfulness decompression therapy can effectively improve mental health and relieve job burnout in frontline nurses in nucleic acid sampling areas, which is worthy of clinical application. Randomized controlled trials are still needed, however, to fully confirm the effects of mindfulness decompression therapy.