Resiliency and Self-Care Behaviors in Health Professional Schools

Abstract

Background: Resilience is crucial for students in health schools as care becomes more complex and as the adjustment to meet patient, environmental, and professional demands with success can seem a daunting challenge. Self-care activities can support the development of resilience in the student population. The purpose of this study is to explore and describe self-care practices, health-promoting behaviors, and resilience among students, faculty, and staff of the health professional schools at a large metropolitan university. Method: This was a cross-sectional study of data from 148 participants. Analysis included descriptive statistics, t tests, analysis of variance, crosstabs, and Pearson correlations. Results: Resilience was lower among students than among faculty and staff. The most frequent self-care activities were humor and music. Resilience was significantly correlated with the self-care behaviors of praying ( p = .006), healthy sleeping habits ( p = .024), reading ( p = .007), and mindful acceptance ( p = .025); yoga and meditation were not significantly correlated with resilience.

Mindful Self-Care Practice of Nurses in Acute Care: A Multisite Cross-Sectional Survey

“…Previous research demonstrated that mindful self-care is beneficial for nurses in palliative and critical care settings. The noted benefits are improved physiological and psychological well-being, stress reduction, increased attention awareness, self-compassion, sense of coherence, and increased ability to develop therapeutic relationships (Ando et al, 2011; Cohen-Katz et al, 2005; Halm, 2017; Lin et al, 2020; Mackenzie et al, 2006; Shapiro et al, 2005). Mindful self-care practices can also increase nurses’ resilience, improving their ability to prove safe care in clinical practice (Chipu & Downing, 2020; Halm, 2017).…”

Evaluation of a Brief Stress Management Workshop for Incoming Nursing Students

“…This significant finding provides evidence that learning stress management strategies early in the nursing program may impact resilience for students. Other research has found that self-care behaviors such as prayer, reading, and healthy sleeping were positively correlated with resilience in professional schools 29…”

“…Other research has found that self-care behaviors such as prayer, reading, and healthy sleeping were positively correlated with resilience in professional schools. 29…”