An interventional study of Emotional Freedom Techniques in Burnout, Anxiety and Distress, Emotional, sponsored by University of Indianapolis. Completed at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-05-02.
Sponsored by University of Indianapolis · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment
The goal of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of Emotional Freedome Techniques (EFT) on burnout in rehabilitation therapists. The main question[s] it aims to answer [is/are]:
Participants will:
Healthcare employees experience various difficulties, and burnout is one of the most pressing issues in the field (Bridgeman et al., 2018; Knox et al., 2018). Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), commonly called "tapping," is an emerging psychophysiological intervention that combines elements from cognitive therapy, exposure therapy, and acupressure (Church, 2019; Church et al., 2022). The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of EFT on burnout in rehabilitation therapists. Participants will be members of the American Society of Hand Therapists (ASHT) who are actively employed as occupational therapy or physical therapy practitioners. To recruit participants, researchers will complete the ASHT research division's application for participant recruitment. If the application is denied, researchers will recruit participants through social media. Participants will attend a free, one-hour live virtual wellness session held on a virtual meeting platform. If they choose to participate in the study, they will be directed to a Qualtrics survey to complete the informed consent, demographics, and the Burnout Assessment Tool. During the session, the researchers will guide participants through EFT, collecting Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS) and expanded SUDS data immediately prior to and following the intervention. Additionally, researchers will collect follow-up data using the BAT-S, SUDS, and expanded SUDS questions one month later. Researchers will perform descriptive statistics to analyze demographic data and use SPSS with appropriate statistical tests to explore relationships between the BAT-S, SUDS, and expanded SUDS data from the pre, post, and follow-up data.
Inclusion Criteria: (a) the ability to read and speak English, (b) 18 years of age or older, and (c) actively working in direct patient care.
Exclusion Criteria:
Emotional Freedom Techniques
Subjective Units of Distress
The SUDS is a rating scale used with EFT to measure individuals' current subjective units of distress. The scale ranges from 0 to 10, with 0 being no distress and 10 being the highest level of distress (Church, 2019).
Time frame: before, immediately after, and at the one-month follow-up of the EFT session
Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT)
The BAT is a self-report, Likert-scale questionnaire used to measure burnout. The developers divided burnout into four core scales: exhaustion, mental distance, cognitive impairment, and emotional impairment.
Time frame: before EFT session and at the one-month follow-up
Plan to share: Yes — Only IPD used in the results publication
Supporting information: Study protocol, Icf
This study is completed, as verified in Apr 2025. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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University of Indianapolis