Investigating the effect of an online mindfulness app on workplace-associated psychological and physiological stress levels of direct care workers in rural Australian aged care

INTERVENTION: Participants will be asked to engage in a 3‐week mindfulness program delivered via a smartphone application (app), Smiling Mind (smilingmind.com.au). Smiling Mind is a free app available to download on iOS and Android devices and is accessible online. The app includes a variety of programs comprising of mindfulness meditations and activities ranging in duration from 1‐45 minutes. For this study, participants will engage in the Healthcare Workers Program. The Healthcare Workers app was designed with easy to access information, resources and activities, developed to support users to “manage stress, improve focus and performance, and cultivate connection and resilience” (smilingmind.com.au). The Healthcare Workers Program contains 8 modules: Introduction – What is Mindfulness, Mindfulness Foundations, Managing Stress, Sleep, Thinking Clearly, Connection, Resilience, and Extending your Mindfulness Practice. The modules comprise of a total 51 sessions, 5 educational (e.g., What is mindfulness, Stress management), 8 activity (e.g., Exploring the breath, Journaling exercise), and 38 guided meditation (e.g. Body scan, Brain break) sessions. The majority of the in‐app sessions are audio delivered, with some video and text delivered sessions. Participants will be asked to engage in guided mindfulness meditation for approximately 15 minutes three times a week for 3 weeks. Participants will be asked to complete and record a brief daily log of activities.’recording only the number of minutes spent using the app. To monitor adherence to the intervention, usage data (mins.) will be obtained from Smiling Mind (with participant permission). CONDITION: Public Health ‐ Health service research workplace stress; ; workplace stress PRIMARY OUTCOME: Changes in intentions to leave the job as assessed by the Turnover Intention Scale (TIS‐6; Bothma & Roodt, 2013);[pre‐intervention, post‐intervention immediately following 3‐week intervention (primary endpoint), 8 weeks post‐intervention] Changes in pre‐clinical markers of ill‐health as assessed by the concentration levels of salivary cortisol, salivary alpha amylase (sAA) and secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA).; ; [Timepoint: pre‐intervention, post‐intervention immediately following 3‐week intervention (primary endpoint), 8 weeks post‐intervention] The primary measure of workplace stress as assessed by the Effort‐Reward Imbalance Questionnaire (ERI‐Q; Siegrist, 1996). [pre‐intervention, post‐intervention immediately following 3‐week intervention (primary endpoint), 8 weeks post‐intervention] SECONDARY OUTCOME: Changes in levels of chronic stress as assessed by the Perceived Stress scale [baseline, immediately post 3‐week intervention, 8 weeks post intervention] Changes in levels of mebtal and physical health as assessed by the Short Form General Health Questionairre [baseline, immediately post 3‐week intervention, 8 weeks post intervention] Changes in levels of trait mindfulness as assessed by Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory ‐ Short Form (FMI; Walach, Buchheld, Buttenmüller, Kleinknecht, & Schmidt, 2006)[pre‐intervention, post‐intervention immediately following 3‐week intervention , 8 weeks post‐intervention] workplace stress as assessed by the Job‐Demands Resources Questionairre [baseline, immediately post 3‐week intervention, 8 weeks post intervention] INCLUSION CRITERIA: Participants will need to be over 18 years in age, employed in aged care, working primarily in a direct‐care role. Participants will be required to be working a minimum of 20 hours per week and have been employed for at least three months.