A Community of Practice focused on resiliency in graduate nursing students.

摘要

The purpose of this project was to create a Community of Practice (CoP) focused on resiliency in graduate nursing students. CoPs are networks of people who collectively learn and share in learning as a social experience. By engaging a CoP that focused on resiliency in graduate nursing students, the aim was to positively support students' sense of community and ability to care for themselves as well as others despite exposure to stressors.;Stress, a normal physiological response, becomes a problem when coping behaviors result in poor mental and physical health. Stress is widely reported in healthcare students, and students exposed to many academic and professional stressors may increase their risk for mental and physical exhaustion and poor patient care. A potential solution is to focus on student resiliency, the ability to adapt in healthy manners to a variety of stressors. Resiliency may be developed and practiced with healthy stress reduction techniques such as sleep, a healthy diet, exercise, social support, relaxation, and meditation/mindfulness.;Participants were graduate nursing students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing, who were recruited through promotional flyers, email, and word-of-mouth. The project included a one-hour face-to-face workshop, seven emailed bulletins focused on a specific resiliency theme, weekly texts, and lastly, a CoP Facebook site. The entire project occurred over 8 weeks. Pre-and post- surveys assessed the effectiveness of coping skills. These pre- and post- surveys used validated questionnaires to measure stress (DASS-21) and coping (Brief COPE) and incorporated additional questions based on project content. Demographic information was also collected. As a follow-up on the applicability of the weekly information, participants received an optional, short survey specific to the week's topic. Quantitative and qualitative data were compared and thematically summarized.;The program was found to be helpful by most participants and resulted in useful feedback on project content and design. However, generalizability to the target population was limited by the small sample size.