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Background: Stress, and particularly burnout, is a major problem among healthcare workers and can lead to high staff turnover and low patient/client satisfaction. Objective: To explore the impact of 3-day compassion-focused therapy training on those delivering education to healthcare students. The underpinning premise was that the training course could potentially be replicated through the participants' work with students embarking on a career within the helping professions. Design: Mixed-methods study, with the qualitative findings being presented in this paper. Setting: Training course was delivered in one higher education institution in England. Methods: In total, 44 healthcare lecturers attended the course, with 6 taking part in a reflective focus group. Findings: The analysis highlighted four main themes--reassurance and increased knowledge, increased compassion towards others, self-compassion and empathy, and blocks to compassion. Conclusion: Findings add to previous quantitative research findings showing that participants who undertook training were able to engage with their compassionate self and consider the importance of showing compassion towards the self and others in healthcare education.

Objectives: Recovery from sexual trauma can be complex and multi‐faceted. Most current psychological treatment protocols for trauma use a cognitive model of post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, sexual trauma may include specific complexities beyond that of a cognitive model of PTSD, such as relational factors. The distress experienced after sexual abuse may involve variables not exclusive to a PTSD model. Compassion focused therapy (CFT) is an approach that incorporates evolutionary, relational and social perspectives. This study explored the relationships between variables associated with CFT, PTSD and distress in survivors of sexual abuse to determine the role of CFT‐related variables. Methods: 155 adults who had experienced sexual abuse or any unwanted sexual experience at any point in their lives completed online questionnaires pertaining to various CFT variables (self‐compassion, receiving compassion from others, having a fear of compassion from others, having a fear of compassion from the self, shame and self‐criticism) and questionnaires measuring global distress as the outcome of sexual abuse and PTSD symptoms. Results: An exploratory model involving CFT‐related variables explained significantly more of the variance (4.4%) in global distress than PTSD symptomology alone. Self‐criticism was found to be the variable with significant contribution. Conclusions: That CFT treatments, targeting self‐criticism, should be developed alongside the standard cognitive model of PTSD based treatments for survivors of sexual abuse was supported. Future research may explore experimental designs utilizing CFT in this population, as well as further investigations on the roles of these specific CFT variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: High levels of stress have been found within health care staff, particularly in the nursing population, which is somewhat attributed to the Covid‐19 pandemic. The development of self‐compassion, a protective psychological construct, may promote well‐being in the health care staff population. As part of a service development project, the authors delivered and evaluated a brief online compassion‐focused intervention with nurses working within Intensive Care Units (ICUs). Aims: Aims were to explore feasibility within the ICU nursing population and consider potential benefits to psychological well‐being. Methods: ICU nurses registered for an online, 4 week, compassion‐focused intervention as part of a service development project. Measures of compassion, burnout, trauma, and the emotional climate of their work environment were analysed in two groups; those who completed the intervention and those who did not. Baseline and post‐intervention measures were analysed to infer the potential benefits of the intervention. Results: Compared with their baseline scores, those who completed the intervention showed improvements on measures of compassion, soothing in emotional climate, and reductions in burnout, trauma and threat in emotional climate. At baseline, those who did not complete the intervention scored lower on measures of compassion and soothing within their emotional climate, as well as higher levels of trauma and threat within the emotional climate, compared with those who engaged with the intervention. Conclusions: Brief online compassion‐focused interventions may be a useful platform to promote well‐being in ICU nurses, but possibly only for those who have a pre‐established level of self‐compassion. Relevance to Clinical Practice: This study demonstrates the value of offering online interventions to improve the mental health of nursing staff. The findings suggest that nurses may benefit from being offered online interventions as welll as traditional psychological interventions. This may shape further service provision by offering nurses who require support a wider range of treatment options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]