Other Titles
Your Workforce Sustainability Kit: Is Debriefing the Missing Tool for Quality, Safety, and Well-being? [Title Slide]
Abstract
Purpose: To pilot a professional development offering providing a comprehensive debriefing model inclusive of quality, safety, and clinician well-being concerns. This is responsive to main gaps identified in recent systematic reviews exploring the evidence for debriefing to support emotional well-being of clinicians.
Theoretical Framework: Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior guides this professional development and evaluation by examining behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs, and control beliefs.
Project: This program evaluation explored baseline gaps identified by 17 nurses who attended a comprehensive debriefing workshop in Maryland. Data was collected before the workshop to assess baseline exposure to debriefing behaviors and practice norms. The one-day in-person workshop used open-ended and conceptual grounded approach to encourage thinking and reflection facilitating a dialogic process that bridges the authority gap, connecting the experience to real world scenarios.
Participants were encouraged to expand their understanding of debriefing as a potential tool for collaborative, interdisciplinary well-being support after complicated events. The framework provides prompts to examine common elements of quality and safety concerns in an environment that explicitly supports nervous system regulation. Post-implementation data was collected from 7 nurses 6 weeks after the workshop to assess their behaviors, intentions, and actions in applying the framework.
Evaluation: Baseline results identified that 93% of participants’ units did not use a structured guide for debriefing and additionally had never received formal training on how to lead a debrief. 57% of participants did not believe their teams felt psychologically safe during debriefs and that 87% of participants did not believe their colleagues knew how to access resources for emotional support. Six weeks after participation,100% of respondents rated themselves as confident in applying the framework. All respondents identified themselves as being in control of their use of the framework. The use of a “basic assumption statement” within the framework supported 100% of participants in their intention to foster psychological safety in further debriefings. 100% of respondents would prioritize the normalization of emotional support resources in future debriefs. Additionally, 100% of respondents found themselves using elements of the framework outside of formal debriefing opportunities and intended to continue.
Notes
Reference list included in attached slide deck.
Sigma Membership
Alpha Chi, Alpha Nu
Type
Presentation
Format Type
Text-based Document
Study Design/Type
Other
Research Approach
Pilot/Exploratory Study
Keywords:
Stress/Coping, Workforce, Debriefing, Crisis Intervention, Psychological Well-Being, Psychological Safety
Recommended Citation
Runyon, Maggie and Kosmas, Tara Ryan, "Your Workforce Sustainability Kit: Is Debriefing the Underutilized Tool for Safety and Well-being?" (2026). Creating Healthy Work Environments (CHWE). 34.
https://www.sigmarepository.org/chwe/2026/presentations_2026/34
Conference Name
Creating Healthy Work Environments
Conference Host
Sigma Theta Tau International
Conference Location
Washington, DC, USA
Conference Year
2026
Rights Holder
All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record. All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository. All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.
Review Type
Abstract Review Only: Reviewed by Event Host
Acquisition
Proxy-submission
Date of Issue
2026-04-27
Your Workforce Sustainability Kit: Is Debriefing the Underutilized Tool for Safety and Well-being?
Washington, DC, USA
Purpose: To pilot a professional development offering providing a comprehensive debriefing model inclusive of quality, safety, and clinician well-being concerns. This is responsive to main gaps identified in recent systematic reviews exploring the evidence for debriefing to support emotional well-being of clinicians.
Theoretical Framework: Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior guides this professional development and evaluation by examining behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs, and control beliefs.
Project: This program evaluation explored baseline gaps identified by 17 nurses who attended a comprehensive debriefing workshop in Maryland. Data was collected before the workshop to assess baseline exposure to debriefing behaviors and practice norms. The one-day in-person workshop used open-ended and conceptual grounded approach to encourage thinking and reflection facilitating a dialogic process that bridges the authority gap, connecting the experience to real world scenarios.
Participants were encouraged to expand their understanding of debriefing as a potential tool for collaborative, interdisciplinary well-being support after complicated events. The framework provides prompts to examine common elements of quality and safety concerns in an environment that explicitly supports nervous system regulation. Post-implementation data was collected from 7 nurses 6 weeks after the workshop to assess their behaviors, intentions, and actions in applying the framework.
Evaluation: Baseline results identified that 93% of participants’ units did not use a structured guide for debriefing and additionally had never received formal training on how to lead a debrief. 57% of participants did not believe their teams felt psychologically safe during debriefs and that 87% of participants did not believe their colleagues knew how to access resources for emotional support. Six weeks after participation,100% of respondents rated themselves as confident in applying the framework. All respondents identified themselves as being in control of their use of the framework. The use of a “basic assumption statement” within the framework supported 100% of participants in their intention to foster psychological safety in further debriefings. 100% of respondents would prioritize the normalization of emotional support resources in future debriefs. Additionally, 100% of respondents found themselves using elements of the framework outside of formal debriefing opportunities and intended to continue.
Description
Participants will engage and reflect on their own practices to understand the power of debriefing strategies to enhance clinicians’ well-being and inform quality and safety metrics in tandem. Participants will apply the Theory of Planned Behavior to assess their workforce’s baseline behaviors and attitudes towards debriefing and determine next steps for implementing our comprehensive debriefing framework to support their daily work.