The Impact of Professional Coaching on Early Career Academic Emergency Physicians

Sponsor

Mayo Clinic (Other)

Overall Status

Completed

CT.gov ID

NCT03125330

Collaborator

(none)

Enrollment

Location

Arms

33.1

Actual Duration (Months)

1.4

Patients Per Site Per Month

Study Details

Study Description

Brief Summary

This research study is designed to answer the question: How does professional coaching impact early career academic emergency medicine physician goal attainment, leadership strengths, well-being, and burnout?

Condition or Disease	Intervention/Treatment	Phase
Development, Human Well-Being Professional Burnout Goals Leadership Professional Role Physician's Role Stress Anxiety	Behavioral: Professional coaching	N/A

Detailed Description

A recent systematic review and meta-analysis found coaching to have significant positive effects on goal attainment, well-being, coping skills, work attitudes, and goal-directed self-regulation. Randomized controlled studies of professional coaching have found significant positive effects in various settings including high school teachers and students, postgraduate students in a major university, and executives in the commercial, government, and education sectors.

Coaching provides the participant focused time with a trained professional who facilitates that participant's self-determined and self-directed problem-solving and change. Coaching helps the participant "get on the balcony" away from the action on the "dance floor" to see things from a different and broader perspective and, in doing so, enriches the participant's ability to generate options, challenge biases, understand the effects of emotions, and consider uncertainty.

This study also establishes the level of adult development of academic faculty and creates an initial qualitative dataset for further longitudinal study and theory generation for physician well-being, burnout, leadership strengths, and goal attainment.

Study Design

Study Type:

Interventional

Actual Enrollment :

46 participants

Allocation:

Randomized

Intervention Model:

Parallel Assignment

Masking:

None (Open Label)

Primary Purpose:

Other

Official Title:

The Impact of Professional Coaching on Early Career Academic Emergency Physician Well-Being, Burnout, Leadership Strengths, and Goal Attainment: A Pilot Randomized, Controlled Trial

Actual Study Start Date :

Jun 1, 2017

Actual Primary Completion Date :

Mar 5, 2020

Actual Study Completion Date :

Mar 5, 2020

Arms and Interventions

Arm	Intervention/Treatment
Experimental: One-to-One Coaching Participants randomized to One-to-One Coaching meet for an initial 2-hour coaching session, followed by seven 1-hour coaching sessions every 3-weeks. These eight sessions take place over the course of 6 months. Additional requirements for One-to-One Coaching: Complete a 30-minute online assessment of goal attainment, well-being, burnout, and leadership strengths (a) at study enrollment, (b) at 6-months after study enrollment, and (c) 12-months following study enrollment. Complete a 15-minute VIA Character Strengths Test online prior to One-to-One Coaching. Following the completion of the final coaching session, participants are interviewed by a con-investigator by phone call to assess the experience of coaching. Each coaching session will be recorded, transcribed, anonymized, and analyzed to identify common themes.	Behavioral: Professional coaching Professional coaching is provided by the Principal Investigator via video conference. Other Names: Coaching
Active Comparator: Group Coaching Participants meet for 90-minutes each month for 6 months for facilitated professional coaching with a group of colleagues. Additional requirements: Complete a 30-minute online assessment of goal attainment, well-being, burnout, and leadership strengths (a) at study enrollment, (b) at 6-months after study enrollment, and (c) 12-months following study enrollment. Complete a 15-minute VIA Character Strengths Test online prior to Group Coaching. Prior to your initial group coaching session, participate in a 75-minute private phone interview with the primary investigator to discuss the how you make decisions and make sense of the world. Following the completion of the final coaching session, participants are interviewed by a con-investigator by phone call to assess the experience of coaching. Each coaching session will be recorded, transcribed, anonymized, and analyzed to identify common themes.	Behavioral: Professional coaching Professional coaching is provided by the Principal Investigator via video conference. Other Names: Coaching
No Intervention: Group Coaching Waitlist Participants are offered group coaching at the completion of the 12-month study period. Six 90-minute group coaching sessions will occur over the course of six months. Additional requirements: • Complete a 30-minute online assessment of goal attainment, well-being, burnout, and leadership strengths (a) at study enrollment (b) and at 6-months after study enrollment.

Arm

Intervention/Treatment

Experimental: One-to-One Coaching

Participants randomized to One-to-One Coaching meet for an initial 2-hour coaching session, followed by seven 1-hour coaching sessions every 3-weeks. These eight sessions take place over the course of 6 months. Additional requirements for One-to-One Coaching: Complete a 30-minute online assessment of goal attainment, well-being, burnout, and leadership strengths (a) at study enrollment, (b) at 6-months after study enrollment, and (c) 12-months following study enrollment. Complete a 15-minute VIA Character Strengths Test online prior to One-to-One Coaching. Following the completion of the final coaching session, participants are interviewed by a con-investigator by phone call to assess the experience of coaching. Each coaching session will be recorded, transcribed, anonymized, and analyzed to identify common themes.

Behavioral: Professional coaching

Professional coaching is provided by the Principal Investigator via video conference.

Other Names:

Coaching

Active Comparator: Group Coaching

Participants meet for 90-minutes each month for 6 months for facilitated professional coaching with a group of colleagues. Additional requirements: Complete a 30-minute online assessment of goal attainment, well-being, burnout, and leadership strengths (a) at study enrollment, (b) at 6-months after study enrollment, and (c) 12-months following study enrollment. Complete a 15-minute VIA Character Strengths Test online prior to Group Coaching. Prior to your initial group coaching session, participate in a 75-minute private phone interview with the primary investigator to discuss the how you make decisions and make sense of the world. Following the completion of the final coaching session, participants are interviewed by a con-investigator by phone call to assess the experience of coaching. Each coaching session will be recorded, transcribed, anonymized, and analyzed to identify common themes.

Behavioral: Professional coaching

Professional coaching is provided by the Principal Investigator via video conference.

Other Names:

Coaching

No Intervention: Group Coaching Waitlist

Participants are offered group coaching at the completion of the 12-month study period. Six 90-minute group coaching sessions will occur over the course of six months. Additional requirements: • Complete a 30-minute online assessment of goal attainment, well-being, burnout, and leadership strengths (a) at study enrollment (b) and at 6-months after study enrollment.

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcome Measures

Goal Setting and Attainment [18 months (3 measurements at 6-month intervals)]
Each participant identifies two professional goals at study onset. For each of the goals, participants respond to the question, "Up to today, how successful have you been in achieving this goal?" and rate their goal attainment on a scale from 0% (no attainment) to 100% (complete attainment). To control for differences between participants in perceived goal attainment difficulty, participants also will rate each goal for perceived difficulty on a 4-point scale ( 1=very easy, 2=somewhat easy, 3=somewhat difficult, 4=very difficult). Goal attainment scores are calculated by multiplying the difficulty rating by the degree of success.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Psychological Well-Being Scale [18 months (3 measurements at 6-month intervals)]
An 18-item survey that measures eudaemonic well-being.
Empowerment at Work Scale [18 months (3 measurements at 6-month intervals)]
A 12-item survey that measures a physician's sense of meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact while at work.
Abbreviated Two-Item Maslach Burnout Inventory [18 months (3 measurements at 6-month intervals)]
A two-item survey that measures participant burnout.
Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS 21) [18 months (3 measurements at 6-month intervals)]
A 21-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure the severity of the core symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress in both clinical and nonclinical scenarios.
Leadership Self-Efficacy Scale [18 months (3 measurements at 6-month intervals)]
A 5-item scale of leadership self-efficacy.
Self-Insight Scale [18 months (3 measurements at 6-month intervals)]
An 8-item sub-scale of the Self-reflection and Insight Scale. This scale measures individuals' levels of insight into their thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
Solution-Focused Thinking Scale [18 months (3 measurements at 6-month intervals)]
A 12-item scale with three subscales: Problem Disengagement, Goal Orientation, and Resource Activation.
Tolerance for Ambiguity Scale [18 months (3 measurements at 6-month intervals)]
An eight-item assessment that measures tolerance for ambiguity.
Perspective Taking Scale [18 months (3 measurements at 6-month intervals)]
A 7-item subscale of The Empathy Questionnaire that measures perspective-taking.
Qualitative Summary of Coaching Program [After 6-month coaching intervention. 18 months]
An open-ended interview covering issues such as 1) participant's experience with the coaching process and coach; 2) participant goals; 3) impact on the participant's workplace; 4) impact on participant's personal life; and 5) what the participant plans to do to sustain any changes or learnings.
Subject-Object Interview [18 months]
A one-time 60 to 75-minute private interview that measures the particpant's order of subject-object development based upon constructive-developmental theory.

Eligibility Criteria

Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study:

18 Years and Older

Sexes Eligible for Study:

All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers:

Yes

Inclusion:

Emergency physicians
Academic appointment of Instructor or Assistant Professor
Work greater than 80% of their time in a residency and fellowship program approved by the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), or the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) will be invited to participate in the study.