Effect of biofeedback on nursing team coping: a randomized clinical trial

Objective: To assess the effect of cardiovascular biofeedback on coping levels of nursing professionals at a university hospital, when compared with a computerized activity without self-monitoring. Methods: This is a randomized clinical trial, with two groups, biofeedback and placebo, carried out with 115 nursing professionals from a university hospital. The groups participated in nine meetings for three weeks. The outcome was assessed by Coping Responses Inventory, Brazilian version, applied prior to the first session and immediately after the final session. The outcome analysis was performed by ANCOVA, considering alpha = 5%. Results: The Coping Responses variation had a statistically significant effect. The control group showed an increase of 0.17 points in this variation when compared to the intervention group (h(2)= 0.07; p=0.004). The Avoidance Responses variation and Overall Coping Level did not show a statistically significant effect on the group/time interaction (p=0.471 and p=0.786, respectively). Conclusion: Intervention with cardiovascular biofeedback was shown to have no superior effect than placebo in improving coping levels.