Abstract:

Background:
Healthcare professions (HCP) students may be experiencing emotional instability during COVID-19 since it was declared a pandemic in March 2020 in at a greater level than the general population. Due to its rapid spread, level of contagion, and great incidence of lethality in severe cases, COVID-19 it has posed a great threat to human life and health. It has thus had tremendous bearing on emotional wellbeing. In addition to worry about one’s health causing shifts in health behaviors, problems concentrating, and increased use of negative coping strategies, HCP students have additional concerns regarding the interruption of their studies, closing of clinical rotations and clerkships, and postponed licensing exams. The levels of HCP students’ personal resilience, coping skills, and health behaviors, and the extent to which these factors affect their wellbeing during COVID-19, is unknown. Few publications are currently available that have reported HCP students’ experiences during COVID-19. This study assessed resilience, coping, health behaviors, and emotional wellbeing in HCP students during COVID-19.

Methods:
Data were collected from 341 pharmacy, medical, and nursing students from schools in California, Florida, and North Carolina, U.S. during May-June 2020 via an online questionnaire developed by the researchers, titled “Emotional Wellbeing in Healthcare Professions Students Questionnaire” to assess resilience, coping, certain health behaviors, and emotional wellbeing in HCP students. Major study variables were based on the literature which led to the creation of the Emotional Wellbeing in Healthcare Professions Students Questionnaire (EWB-Q), which included validated measures to assess levels of coping strategies uses, personal resilience (the ability to “bounce back” after a setback) and how these variables may contribute to the emotional wellbeing of HCP students. Multiple linear regression and other statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS v.26.

Results:
The sample consisted of 110 pharmacy, 202 medical, and 29 nursing students (N=341) from 5 schools across the United States. About 60% of participants were women; the mean age was 27.2 years. Roughly half (46.6%) of participants were in their clinical training phase. Linear regression modeling indicated that coping, resilience, and health behaviors explained 26% of the variance in emotional wellbeing in HCP students during the beginning months of the pandemic: F(3, 280)=33.280, p<0.001 with an R2 of .263 (adj. R2=.255). Higher levels of resilience, greater use of coping strategies, and healthy eating patterns were predictors of emotional wellbeing.

Conclusions:
As the importance of mental health continues to be of importance during crises and pandemics, cultivating emotional well-being should be a goal for educators and administrators in the healthcare professions as they design campus-based initiatives to help students bolster their personal resilience and to help encourage healthy coping behaviors not only during times of crises, but as a proactive stance to promote personal resilience in students who will soon be providing front-line patient care.

Keywords:

Healthcare professions students, pharmacy, nursing, stress, coping, resilience, COVID-19, emotional wellbeing, mental health.