Abstract
Nurses and students report high stress and burnout associated with front line care. Nursing curriculum and other health professions dedicate little instruction regarding resiliency or handling professional stress. This lack of training may account for the high rate of job and professional turnover in the first year of practice. Stress in the health professions begins as students who arguably work harder than many other students in other majors to meet the high demands of challenging curriculum and clinical practice hours.
The purpose of this presentation is to describe a resiliency training workshop and the effect on student participants regarding feelings of resiliency. This two-hour workshop, in part adapted from other resiliency programming (Cassell, 1985) included discussion about the reality of stress and risk of professional burnout of health professionals in direct patient care, as well as interactive participation of stress-reduction through videos and participation-demonstrations.
The resiliency training workshop was offered to 64 students from nursing, counseling, respiratory therapy, audiology and social work. Maslach Burnout Inventory (1997) administered pre-training revealed 72.5% of students felt emotionally drained by their studies, 65% felt burned out at least multiple times a month, and 60% felt tired in the morning facing another day at school. 95% reported they could effectively solve study related problems and felt they were good students while 50% reported never feeling doubts of the significance of their studies, and 30% reported less enthusiasm about their studies.
Following training, 100% of participants agreed they had a clear understanding of the value of self-care and the impact on future practice, and learned useful tools that will improve resiliency professionally. After training, 78.4% felt more confident in becoming a good healthcare provider, felt more committed to their chosen profession (65.8%) and to patient-centered care (75.6%). Last, 94% recommend resiliency training for others. The highest rated elements of the training was de-stress tool demonstration exercises and videos. 80% rated the experience as valuable for themselves personally and professionally.
Resiliency training is underrepresented in health professions curriculum, yet students report stress and burnout. Entry into professional practice brings additional sources of stress, thus educators need to equip students with strategies to combat stress and burnout.
Notes
References: Cassell, E. J. (1985). The healer's art. MIT Press.
Fauzi, M. F., Anuar, T. S., Teh, L. K., Lim, W. F., James, R. J., Ahmad, R., ... & Salleh, M. Z. (2021). Stress, anxiety and depression among a cohort of health sciences undergraduate students: the prevalence and risk factors. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(6), 3269.
Garbóczy, S., Szemán-Nagy, A., Ahmad, M. S., Harsányi, S., Ocsenás, D., Rekenyi, V., ... & Kolozsvári, L. R. (2021). Health anxiety, perceived stress, and coping styles in the shadow of the COVID-19. BMC psychology, 9, 1-13.
Lawrence, E. C., Carvour, M. L., Camarata, C., Andarsio, E., & Rabow, M. W. (2020). Requiring the Healer’s Art Curriculum to promote professional identity formation among medical students. Journal of Medical Humanities, 41, 531-541.
Maslach, C., Jackson, S. E., & Leiter, M. P. (1997). Maslach burnout inventory. Scarecrow Education.
Wald, H. S. (2020). Optimizing resilience and wellbeing for healthcare professions trainees and healthcare professionals during public health crises–Practical tips for an ‘integrative resilience’ approach. Medical Teacher, 42(7), 744-755.
Sigma Membership
Delta Omega
Type
Presentation
Format Type
Text-based Document
Study Design/Type
N/A
Research Approach
N/A
Keywords:
Curriculum Development, Stress and Coping, Teaching and Learning Strategies
Recommended Citation
Brown, Diane K., "Building Resiliency in Senior Nursing and Health Profession Students" (2025). Creating Healthy Work Environments (CHWE). 39.
https://www.sigmarepository.org/chwe/2025/presentations_2025/39
Conference Name
Creating Healthy Work Environments
Conference Host
Sigma Theta Tau International
Conference Location
Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Conference Year
2025
Rights Holder
All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.
Review Type
Abstract Review Only: Reviewed by Event Host
Acquisition
Proxy-submission
Building Resiliency in Senior Nursing and Health Profession Students
Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Nurses and students report high stress and burnout associated with front line care. Nursing curriculum and other health professions dedicate little instruction regarding resiliency or handling professional stress. This lack of training may account for the high rate of job and professional turnover in the first year of practice. Stress in the health professions begins as students who arguably work harder than many other students in other majors to meet the high demands of challenging curriculum and clinical practice hours.
The purpose of this presentation is to describe a resiliency training workshop and the effect on student participants regarding feelings of resiliency. This two-hour workshop, in part adapted from other resiliency programming (Cassell, 1985) included discussion about the reality of stress and risk of professional burnout of health professionals in direct patient care, as well as interactive participation of stress-reduction through videos and participation-demonstrations.
The resiliency training workshop was offered to 64 students from nursing, counseling, respiratory therapy, audiology and social work. Maslach Burnout Inventory (1997) administered pre-training revealed 72.5% of students felt emotionally drained by their studies, 65% felt burned out at least multiple times a month, and 60% felt tired in the morning facing another day at school. 95% reported they could effectively solve study related problems and felt they were good students while 50% reported never feeling doubts of the significance of their studies, and 30% reported less enthusiasm about their studies.
Following training, 100% of participants agreed they had a clear understanding of the value of self-care and the impact on future practice, and learned useful tools that will improve resiliency professionally. After training, 78.4% felt more confident in becoming a good healthcare provider, felt more committed to their chosen profession (65.8%) and to patient-centered care (75.6%). Last, 94% recommend resiliency training for others. The highest rated elements of the training was de-stress tool demonstration exercises and videos. 80% rated the experience as valuable for themselves personally and professionally.
Resiliency training is underrepresented in health professions curriculum, yet students report stress and burnout. Entry into professional practice brings additional sources of stress, thus educators need to equip students with strategies to combat stress and burnout.
Description
Nurses experience stress and burnout, yet little curriculum relates to resiliency and stress management. A two-hour resiliency workshop offered to senior nursing and other health students showed evidence of student stress and burnout at baseline. Post-training survey results showed the training was valued both personally and professionally, strategies for improving resiliency were learned, and the training was recommended for others.