workforce
What findings were concerning to you about the views of palliative care professionals towards self-care ? Given the literature , I was a little surprised that some of the nurses and doctors who had completed the survey viewed self-care as not very important , but this was a very small proportion , only 1 per cent , so most participants did consider self-care to be either important or very important in their practice .
Of all participants , only 6 per cent used a self-care plan , and even if provided with training , just under a third of respondents said they wouldn ’ t consider developing a self-care plan . Was this surprising ? To some extent , yes . But when you consider that over two-thirds of the participants had not received any education or training in self-care , then you know this is perhaps not too surprising .
Essentially , a self-care plan documents a deliberate process of identifying potential personal or professional stressors and then putting into place some effective strategies that can help promote good health and general wellbeing in the face of those stressors .
And as I alluded to before , I suspect that potentially a lack of education and awareness might be involved here . So care plans are essential to promoting health and wellbeing for our patients , and there ’ s no reason why health professionals themselves can ’ t be more proactive in promoting their own health and wellbeing through something like a self-care plan .
Based on the study ’ s findings , what suggestions would you make to palliative care professionals or the organisations that employ them ? Well , especially in the context of palliative care and even residential aged care where a palliative approach is certainly practised , I think one of the striking things to come out of this study is the apparent lack of education or training for this workforce . So I guess for organisations , this might be something that they may wish to take up , in terms of promoting awareness and providing resources and training for staff on how they can better engage in self-care practice , and then potentially enhance the quality of care for patients and residents .
But then also on an individual level , clinicians [ and ] people in the workforce need to actually be accountable and take responsibility for their own self-care as well , so there are organisational factors , but there are also personal factors , which , if , for example , an organisation was to provide training and build awareness about the importance of self-care and different strategies , that can be very effective . It ’ s then also up to the individual to take up those opportunities to build their knowledge , to equip themselves with those tools and then actually to put it into practice .
So what are some self-care strategies that palliative care professionals can use ? In our study , participants identified , on average , four self-care strategies that they used in their practice . Physical self-care strategies were used most frequently , followed by social self-care , and inner self-care strategies . This is consistent with a self-care framework developed in line with the World Health Organization ’ s understanding and definition of health . So examples of physical self-care strategies included things like jogging , hydrotherapy and yoga . Social self-care strategies were things like having group debriefs in the workplace or clinical supervision with colleagues or , outside of work , spending time with friends or family .
And finally , examples of inner self-care strategies included meditation , mindfulness and different forms of spiritual practice . ■
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