Mindfulness Matters: Use and Perceptions of Mindfulness Practices Among Athletic Trainers.

Context: Mindfulness practices are effective for injury or illness recovery, decreasing stress and anxiety, and strengthening emotional resilience. They are also beneficial for health care professionals' wellbeing and improving patient outcomes and safety. However, mindfulness has not been studied in athletic trainers.

Objective: To investigate athletic trainers' use of mindfulness practices and their perceptions of its importance for self-care and patient or client care.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: All athletic training practice settings.

Patients And Other Participants: A total of 547 athletic trainers who were currently practicing completed the survey.

Main Outcome Measure(s): We developed an 18-item survey that measured use (1 = never to 6 = very frequently) and perceptions (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree) of mindfulness practices. Mann-Whitney U or Kruskal-Wallis tests with post hoc pairwise comparisons were performed to assess differences in use (P < .05). A related-samples Wilcoxon signed rank test was calculated to assess differences in participants' perceptions between self-care and patient or client care.

Results: Overall, 86% (n = 471) of respondents reported involvement in some form of mindfulness practice, with females (median [interquartile range] = 4 [2-5] versus males: 3 [2-4]; P < .002), those not in a committed relationship (4 [2-5] versus those in such a relationship: 3 [2-4]; P = .048), and those without children in the home (4 [2-5] versus those with children in the home: 3 [2-4]; P = .040) describing the highest frequency of use for self-care. Females (4 [2-4] versus males: 3 [2-4]; P < .001), those without children in the home (3 [2-4] versus those with children in the home: 3 [2-4]; P = .036), and those in emerging (4 [2-4]; P = .003) or collegiate (3 [2-4]; P = .006) settings most frequently incorporated mindfulness into patient or client care. Overall frequency of use for self-care was higher than for patient or client care (4 = occasionally [2-4] versus 3 = rarely [2-4]; P < .001). Mindfulness practices were perceived as more important for self-care than for patient or client care (6 [5-7] versus 5 [5-6]; P < .001).

Conclusions: Athletic trainers perceived mindfulness practices as more important for personal wellbeing and used them, albeit occasionally, more for self-care than for patient or client care. Differences in gender, relationship status, children, and setting were observed. Mindfulness-based interventions for athletic trainer wellbeing and patient-centered care and implementation barriers should be explored.