THU0736-HPR The effectiveness of short training in psychological support for nurses in rheumatic care

Abstract

Background: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) often suffer from psychological concerns.1 There is a lack of psychology specialists in many hospitals and clinics. According to EULAR, nurses should undertake a significant portion of providing psychological support to patients.2 However, in Japan nurses involved in clinical practice often do not have sufficient time and opportunity to receive adequate education on psychological support. Objective(s): The aim of this study is to evaluate nurses' understanding of basic psychological concepts and the efficacy of a short psychology workshop for nurses in RA clinical care. Method(s): A clinical psychotherapist provided a lecture on psychological support once for a period of 30 min, followed by 1 hour of role-play groupwork. The lecture focused on basic psychological support including concepts of "listening", "acceptance", "empathy", "open question", "closed question" and "patient-centred perspective". Group work focused on applying the aforementioned concepts. Nurses were asked before and after workshop regarding their understanding and opinions on the necessity and feasibility of psychological support, as well as their motivation for implementation. Nurses' opinions were evaluated on a 1-7 rating scale (1=not at all, 7=full). Client Satisfaction Questionnaire-8 (CSQ-8J) was utilised to assess satisfaction with the workshop. Data analyses were performed with Wilcoxon signed rank test. Result(s): 53 nurses (M/F: 1/52) participated in this study. The average of ages, clinical experience and clinical experience in RA care were 45.5 years old, 21.0 and 7.9 years, respectively. Nurses' opinions regarding the necessity and feasibility of psychological support in general, as well as their motivation for providing psychological support statistically significantly increased post-workshop (necessity: p=0.0052, feasibility: p<0.0001, motivation: p=0.0033). Nurses' answers regarding their current application of these concepts in clinical practice were as follows: mean 7plusmn;SD; listening: 5.157plusmn;1.20, empathy: 5.067plusmn;1.18, acceptance: 4.717plusmn;1.18, open question: 4.807plusmn;1.31, closed question: 4.497plusmn;1.47. The understanding of these concepts was statistically significantly higher after the workshop (p<0.0001 for each concept). Moreover, the feasibility of all the above concepts was rated as statistically significantly higher post-workshop. (p<0.001 for each concept). The necessity of adopting a patient centred perspective was also judged as statistically significantly higher post-workshop (p<0.001). Based on CSQ-8J, satisfaction with the workshop was overall high. Conclusion(s): This is the first report evaluating the effectiveness of brief psychological workshops for nurses in rheumatic care in Japan. This preliminary study demonstrated that even a brief workshop appears effective for assisting and encouraging nurses in providing psychological support to patients. Further studies of training methods and of nurses' application of the skills acquired in such training are ongoing.