Unfolding insights about resilience and its coping strategies among medical academics and healthcare professionals: A thematic qualitative analysis

Abstract

Background Health care professionals (HCPs) and medical and health academics (MHAs) strive to maintain and promote population health through evidence-based medical education and practice. At their workplaces, due to the demanding nature of work, HCPs and MHAs face substantial degree of physiological, psychological, and physical stress including burnout. Resilience has therefore become a fundamental necessity in the medical field. Our research aimed to acquire an in-depth comprehension of how HCPs and MHAs understand, cultivate, and sustain resilience when confronted with challenges and stressors at their workplaces. Methods We reviewed the existing corpus of literature on resilience, stressors, and coping strategies and followed an iterative process of deliberations for the development of a questionnaire. It was validated by content experts and was piloted on a small group of MHAs of the University of Sharjah (UoS) and HCPs from different hospitals of the United Arab Emirates to test its relevance, clarity of items, internal consistency, and inter-observer validity. The validated questionnaire was then used for in-depth interviews on HCPs and MHAs. Lastly, we adopted the Braun and Clarke 6-stage thematic model for qualitative data analysis. Results Our study recorded insights of 170 participants; 69 MHAs and 101 HCPs. Through an inductive thematic analysis of responses, three overarching themes with sub-themes emerged; cognitive mastery (cognitive appraisal and problem-solving abilities), affective well-being (gratification from professional efficacy and social support), and conative efficiency (proactive approaches and introspection and reflection). Other main findings highlighted stress-related factors, realistic expectations, personal well-being and work-life balance. MHAs were concerned about academic output and research, while HCPs were stressed about patient care, delivery of services, and workload. These constructs showcase an intricate interplay between cognitive mastery, affective well-being, and conative efficiency. Conclusion The findings of our study bestow valuable insights into the dynamic nature of resilience in the medical profession. The synergies and dissimilarities in work-life balance, personal productivity, and job-specific stressors among HCPs and MHAs demand a well-structured resilience program. The themes of cognitive mastery, affective well-being, and conative efficiency are interconnected and can help foster work-life balance and personal well-being of HCPs and MHAs to improve their resilience.