Prevalence of Coping Strategy Training in Nursing School Curricula
Kathryn L. Cochran, Marc Moss, Meredith Mealer
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Stress and burnout are plaguing critical care nurses across the globe and leading to high levels of turnover. Resilience-building strategies such as mindfulness, self-care, and well-being can help shield nurses from the negative effects of workplace stress. As the first line of defense, nursing schools could provide students with strategies that build resilience; however, little is known about the availability of such resources in nursing education. OBJECTIVES: To determine the prevalence of resources and curricula targeting resilience training and stress reduction at nursing schools across the United States. METHODS: Raters analyzed publicly available college/ university websites and course catalogs of a sample of nursing schools in the United States to determine the availability of resilience resources and curricula. RESULTS: None of the schools surveyed regularly screened their students for burnout syndrome, and only 9% of schools had a formal curriculum that included resilience training. CONCLUSIONS: Training in practices to build resilience and prevent burnout is essentially absent from accredited nursing schools. This highlights an important opportunity to modify existing curricula to include preventative strategies-such as developing positive coping skills- that could mitigate symptoms of workplace stress in future generations of nurses.