Date of Conferral

9-9-2025

Degree

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

School

Nursing

Advisor

Cara Krulewitch

Abstract

The nature of nursing practice—persistent exposure to patient suffering—often results in compassion fatigue for staff. Compassion/emotional fatigue can affect nurses’ mental well-being, which can manifest in burnout, decreased empathy, and emotional numbness. These outcomes can eventually reduce job satisfaction for nurses and nursing assistants, increase errors during patient care, and lead to poorer patient outcomes. Prioritizing caregivers' mental health may improve the quality of nursing care. Mindfulness-based therapy (MBT) is an approach that may ensure the mental health and emotional stability of those who care for patients while also being a comparatively easy, accessible, and affordable tool. The goal of this nursing staff educational project was to determine whether education can enhance the willingness of the nursing team to practice mindfulness. The project focused on educating nurses and nursing assistants directly involved in caring for patients. Twenty participants, representing about 50% of the nursing team in the target unit, completed a pre- and post-education survey. The data were analyzed to understand the impact of education on staff’s willingness to practice mindfulness. The data analysis revealed a two-tailed p value of .0356 with a confidence interval of -2.33 to -0.09, which indicated that the effect was due to the educational intervention. The results show that nursing staff were more willing to engage in the core practices of mindfulness after the staff education project. This project may promote positive social change by providing nursing leaders with knowledge they can potentially use to help their team members build resilience, provide qualitative and empathetic care, and enhance engagement.

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