Changes in Resilience in Students of Occupational Therapy After Their First Exposure to Practice Placement Education.

Abstract

Introduction: Resilience is a multidimensional and dynamic construct associated with positive growth and the capacity to transform stressful and negative factors into opportunities of personal development and self-improvement when faced with difficult experiences. The resilience process of each individual integrates multiple analysis levels, which range from genetic-environmental interactions to a complex process of adaptation between the individual and his/her family, friends, co-workers, society, and culture. Objective: To determine whether resilience improves in students of occupational therapy when exposed for the first time to practice placement education. Methodology: Quasi-experimental, prospective, observational, multi-center study with a sample composed of students from the Degree of Occupational Therapy of the public universities of Málaga (UMA) and Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) (Spain). Two weeks prior to the beginning of the practice education period, the participants completed a questionnaire that included sociodemographic data and the area of their internships. They were also given the Spanish version of the Connor-Davidson's resilience scale (CD-RISC). All these instruments were also completed 1 week after the end of the clinical practice. Results: There were statistically significant differences between the variables that make up resilience and the different internship areas. On the other hand, there was a significant improvement of global resilience after the clinical practice period, in both women (13.85 points; p