Replacing stressful challenges with positive coping strategies: a resilience program for clinical placement learning

• Published in: Advances in health sciences education : theory and practice 2015-12, Vol.20 (5), p.1303-1324
• Main Authors: Delany, C., Miller, K. J., El-Ansary, D., Remedios, L., Hosseini, A., McLeod, S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptation, Psychological; Anxiety; Awareness; Clinical Clerkship; Cognitive Ability; Communication; Coping; Education; Educational Environment; Health Sciences; Humans; Medical Education; Medical Students; Mindfulness; Patient Education as Topic - methods; Perception; Physical Therapy; Physical Therapy Specialty - education; Professional Training; Psychoeducational Methods; Qualitative Research; Research Methodology; Resilience (Psychology); Resilience, Psychological; Resistance (Psychology); Self Efficacy; Stress Management; Stress Variables; Stress, Psychological - prevention & control; Stress, Psychological - therapy; Students; Students - psychology; Undergraduate Students
• ISSN: 1382-4996; 1573-1677
• DOI: 10.1007/s10459-015-9603-3

Clinical education is foundational to health professional training. However, it is also a time of increased stress for students. A student’s perception of stressors and their capacity to effectively manage them is a legitimate concern for educators, because anxiety and decreased coping strategies can interfere with effective learning, clinical performance and capacity to care for patients. Resilience is emerging as a valuable construct to underpin positive coping strategies for learning and professional practice. We report the development and evaluation of a psycho-education resilience program designed to build practical skills-based resilience capacities in health science (physiotherapy) students. Six final year undergraduate physiotherapy students attended four action research sessions led by a clinical health psychologist. Resilience strategies drawn from cognitive behavioural therapy, and positive and performance psychology were introduced. Students identified personal learning stressors and their beliefs and responses. They chose specific resilience-based strategies to address them, and then reported their impact on learning performance and experiences. Thematic analysis of the audio-recorded and transcribed action research sessions, and students’ de identified notes was conducted. Students’ initial descriptions of stressors as ‘problems’ outside their control resulting in poor thinking and communication, low confidence and frustration, changed to a focus on how they managed and recognized learning challenges as normal or at least expected elements of the clinical learning environment. The research suggests that replacing stressful challenges with positive coping strategies offers a potentially powerful tool to build self-efficacy and cognitive control as well as greater self-awareness as a learner and future health practitioner.