Enhancing Physician Wellness Through Tracking Self-Care Time
Author(s): Susanna Fung, James Carson, Randall Lee, Jennifer McDonald, Preeni Rathuge, Mruna Shah, Janice Weiss, David Wheler
Description:
Physician wellness has recently gained attention and initiatives to promote resident wellness have been made by the Departments of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto and the Scarborough Health Network (SHN). However, a gap was identified in the provision of practical wellness initiatives designed for the preceptors responsible for teaching these resident physicians.
Eight family medicine preceptors from SHN developed a quality improvement project to enhance their wellness by increasing their individual total self-care time, defined as time spent doing intentional activities that give joy, by 25% within four months. Change ideas included implementing a spreadsheet for tracking self-care time, a Whatsapp chat group for sharing activities, and targeting a specific area of self-care need. The primary outcome measure was the percentage change in individual self-care time, with a secondary measure of using the World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index (WHO-5) score to monitor overall well-being.
Following three PDSA cycles, the average percentage change in self-care time fluctuated from a 10.36% decrease to a 69.95% increase. The average WHO-5 score improved from a baseline of 63.5 to a range of 71.7 to 78.4. The use of a spreadsheet was helpful in facilitating awareness of time allocation while opinions on the Whatsapp chat varied. Participants concluded that while increasing self-care time contributed to wellness, it did not necessarily translate into enhanced overall well-being; unmeasured factors, such as illness and work-related stressors, also influenced the WHO-5 score. Future directions include implementation of targeted strategies in addressing these areas of well-being.