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Narrative Medicine Effects on Burnout and Stress

NCT ID: NCT07136597

Last Updated: 2025-12-18

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

NOT_YET_RECRUITING

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

60 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2026-03-31

Study Completion Date

2026-06-30

Brief Summary

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A rising area of interest over the past several years has been on the issue of physician burnout. Burnout can be defined as a chronic occupational stress response characterized by multi-dimensional exhaustion and diminished sense of fulfillment in one's personal and professional life. Regarding the effects of emotional, occupational and physical stress on job satisfaction, standard of care and staff retention, it is important to determine meaningful methods to alleviate and prevent burnout among healthcare professionals.

Detailed Description

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Common coping strategies for burnout and occupational stress are related to social, emotional and physical factors. Community support, physical care and activity, as well as distancing from work have been found to be particularly efficient. Similarities among burnout strategies include cultivating community and building a sense of shared understanding. Additionally, improving self-awareness and regulating emotions are often the desired outcome of these strategies. Extending these strategies outside of workplace initiatives and into convenient, personal spaces has been suggested to preserve work-life balance.

Thus, narrative medicine offers a space for these strategies to culminate in flash writing. Narrative medicine has been proposed as a model for humane and effective medicine, combining narrative competence and medical practice. Using this model, gaining narrative competence has the ability to positively impact the lives of healthcare professionals and patients, as well as interprofessional teams and broader organizations. The efficacy of flash writing to gain this competence as well as manage the burnout stressors that would typically detract from narrative medicine warrants research into this area.

Flash writing offers the opportunity to investigate the relationship between reflective/ creative writing and burnout. Flash writing can be understood as short-form, creative pieces written in one's personal style. This type of writing exercise can be performed prompted or unprompted, takes approximately 5-10 minutes to complete and is meant to serve the psychological needs of the author. As such, its implementation in burnout alleviation or prevention as well as acute stress reduction may serve as an easily accessible, efficient and customizable strategy.

Conditions

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Healthcare Professionals

Keywords

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stress mitigation exhaustion mental health challenges

Study Design

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Allocation Method

NA

Intervention Model

SINGLE_GROUP

narrative medicine based flash writing with burnout levels and stress response using a series of surveys and in-person workshops.
Primary Study Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Blinding Strategy

NONE

Study Groups

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narrative medicine workshops

participants will be asked to attend 3/6 monthly narrative medicine workshops through the study's duration following an initial workshop that will be used to introduce the concepts of narrative medicine and flash writing

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Narrative Medicine Workshop

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

participants will be asked to attend 3/6 monthly narrative medicine workshops through the study's duration following an initial workshop that will be used to introduce the concepts of narrative medicine and flash writing.

Interventions

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Narrative Medicine Workshop

participants will be asked to attend 3/6 monthly narrative medicine workshops through the study's duration following an initial workshop that will be used to introduce the concepts of narrative medicine and flash writing.

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Other Intervention Names

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narrative medicine based flash-writing

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* Study participants must be current faculty at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist (AHWFB) within three departments: internal medicine, surgery and pediatrics

Exclusion Criteria

* Faculty who are not currently working at AHWFB may be excluded
Minimum Eligible Age

21 Years

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Sponsors

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Wake Forest University Health Sciences

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Responsibility Role SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

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Cormac O'Donovan, MD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Wake Forest University Health Sciences

Locations

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Wake Forest University Health Sciences

Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States

Site Status

Countries

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United States

Central Contacts

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Kennedy R Combs, MD

Role: CONTACT

Phone: 828-458-9926

Email: [email protected]

Cormac O'Donovan, MD

Role: CONTACT

Phone: 704-355-2000

Email: [email protected]

Facility Contacts

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Kennedy R Combs, MD

Role: primary

Other Identifiers

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IRB00126610

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id