Nursing and Healthcare

These resilience instructional materials are supportive of a university integrative nursing program and may be useful to a wide range of healthcare professionals. The materials are consistent with recommendations from the World Health Organization (Suicide, 2014) for suicide prevention.

By practicing to be resilient, we take greater control of our challenges and we can make our families more resilient, too. Resilience encourages using positive-coping skills to manage stress in an optimal way. These positive-coping skills are considered protective factors because our intent is to take a personal challenge and create a more positive and less stressful outcome. Protective factors include recommendations of the World Health Organization for suicide prevention. Our objectives, therefore, are to develop social support systems, positive-coping skills for resilience, self-esteem, self-efficacy (believing you are capable of reaching a goal), and problem solving skills. An entirely educational approach is used for learning resilience using the theme of the "Hero's Journey." Common to many epic stories is the hero who, facing a challenge, goes on an adventure, is victorious, and returns as a transformed person. The Hero's Journey encourages us to recognize the importance of teamwork through a social support system.

The Basic Resilience Exercises are group focused though, minimally, two people can do the training together, such as two healthcare workers or a healthcare worker and family member. Solitary learning is not encouraged simply because social support is key to resilience.

This learning uses Problem Based Learning (PBL) by applying positive-coping skills to create less stressful outcomes to our real life challenges. We title these skills Belief, Persistence, Strength, Trust, and Adaptability for our learning. Each positive-coping skill has three exercises, "Tell your story" to build on your prior successes, "Collaborate" to build problem solving skills while working on a real challenge with a companion, and "Transformation" to reflect or think about how you have changed after working with the exercises.

The Basic Resilience Exercises can be completed orally. Alternatively, writing responses can often help to better organize thinking. If you have limited time, then consider completing the Belief and Trust skills. Then, go to the Strength Skill and practice a relaxation exercise, such as diaphragmatic breathing. Though each skill is unique, the learning exercises for each skill are nearly the same. This repeating of exercises is intended to build confidence. This, in turn, strengthens the idea we can be resilient and work comfortably with others as we deal with real life challenges.