The Effect of Guided group Reflection on the Ability and Convenience of Breaking Bad News in Pre-hospital Emergency Staff

Background: Bad news refers to the category of news that create negative changes in a person's understanding or expectations of his present and future. Breaking bad news (BBN) is a stressful task that may have disturbing effects on the professional performance and general health of the medical staff. Pre-hospital emergency staff often needs to break bad news to the patient or his family. This study was conducted to determine the effect of Guided group Reflection training on the ability and comfort of BBN in pre-hospital emergency staff. Methods: : This quasi-experimental study was conducted on a total of 95 operational staff of the pre-hospital emergency ward in Yazd, Iran, in two groups: the case and the control groups. For the case group, a 4-hour training workshop on BBN was held, and then a group was formed in virtual space to discuss and exchange opinions about the scenarios of encountering and reflecting on it. Data collection tools were SPIKES Questionnaire and the Convenience of Breaking Bad News Questionnaire. The data were analyzed with SPSS. Results: : The mean score of the ability to break bad news after the intervention was 44.01±6.21 in the case group and 31.40±4.51 in the control group, and a significant difference was found using the independent t-test (P=0.0001). Besides, the mean scores of the convenience of BBN in post-test was 5.52±1.64 in the case group and 3.50±1.28 in the control group using the independent t-test with a significant difference (P=0.0001). Conclusion: According to the findings, training in Guided group Reflection improved the ability to report bad news and its convenience in pre-hospital emergency staff; so, the use of this method in training and retraining for this group is suggested.