Design and Implementation of a Brief Digital Mindfulness and Compassion Training App for Health Care Professionals: Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Several studies show that intense work schedules make health care professionals particularly vulnerable to emotional exhaustion and burnout. Objective: In this scenario, promoting self-compassion and mindfulness may be beneficial for well-being. Notably, scalable, digital app-based methods may have the potential to enhance self-compassion and mindfulness in health care professionals. Methods: In this study, we designed and implemented a scalable, digital app-based, brief mindfulness and compassion training program called "WellMind" for health care professionals. A total of 22 adult participants completed up to 60 sessions of WellMind training, 5-10 minutes in duration each, over 3 months. Participants completed behavioral assessments measuring self-compassion and mindfulness at baseline (preintervention), 3 months (postintervention), and 6 months (follow-up). In order to control for practice effects on the repeat assessments and calculate effect sizes, we also studied a no-contact control group of 21 health care professionals who only completed the repeated assessments but were not provided any training. Additionally, we evaluated pre and postintervention neural activity in core brain networks using electroencephalography source imaging as an objective neurophysiological training outcome. Results: Findings showed a post-versus preintervention increase in self-compassion (Cohen d=0.57; P=.007) and state-mindfulness (d=0.52; P=.02) only in the WellMind training group, with improvements in self-compassion sustained at follow-up (d=0.8; P=.01). Additionally, WellMind training durations correlated with the magnitude of improvement in self-compassion across human participants (rho=0.52; P=.01). Training-related neurophysiological results revealed plasticity specific to the default mode network (DMN) that is implicated in mind-wandering and rumination, with DMN network suppression selectively observed at the postintervention time point in the WellMind group (d=-0.87; P=.03). We also found that improvement in self-compassion was directly related to the extent of DMN suppression (rho=-0.368; P=.04). Conclusions: Overall, promising behavioral and neurophysiological findings from this first study demonstrate the benefits of brief digital mindfulness and compassion training for health care professionals and compel the scale-up of the digital intervention. Trial Registration: Trial Registration: International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number Registry ISRCTN94766568, https://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN94766568