Online yoga programme for resident physicians in Québec: an evaluation of feasibility and impact on mental health.

Objectives: To evaluate the feasibility of the Bali Yoga Programme for Residents (PYB-R), an 8-week virtual yoga-based intervention and determine its impact on the mental health of resident physicians.

Design: Single-group repeated measures study.

Setting: Associations from the four postgraduate medical education programmes in Québec, Canada.

Participants: Overall, 55 resident physicians were recruited to participate of which 53 (96.4%) completed the assessment pre-PYB-R. The postintervention assessment was completed by 43 residents (78.2%) and 39 (70.9%) completed all phases (including 3-month follow-up). Most were in their first year (43.4%) or second year (32.1%) of residency. The majority were female (81.1%) with a mean age of 28±3.6 years.

Primary And Secondary Outcome Measures: The primary outcome measure was feasibility as measured by participation in the PYB-R. Secondary outcome measures were psychological variables (anxiety, depression, burn-out, emotional exhaustion, compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction) and satisfaction with the PYB-R. Residents were further subgrouped based on the quality of work life and a number of PYB-R sessions attended.

Results: The attrition rate for programme completion was 19%. Of the 43 residents who completed the PYB-R, 90.6% attended between 6 and 8 sessions. Repeated-measures analysis of variances (ANOVAs) at three time points (baseline, PYB-R completion and 3-month follow-up) confirmed a decrease in scores for depression and anxiety, and an increase in scores for compassion satisfaction. No changes were observed in the other psychological variables evaluated. ANOVAs also confirmed that a better quality of life at work helps develop compassion satisfaction, a protective factor to compassion fatigue. Most participants (92.9%) indicated they were satisfied or very satisfied with the quality of the programme.

Conclusions: A virtual yoga-based programme is feasible and has lasting positive effects for up to 3 months on the mental health of resident physicians. Further research is warranted to validate these findings using a larger sample of residents with a control group.