Resilience Training to Reduce Stress Levels and Improve the Quality of Life for First-Year Medical Students at Hasanuddin University

Abstract

Medical students are more vulnerable to stress. This condition can lead to any psychological problem, such as anxiety, depression, burnout, and even suicide, and affect the quality of life. Resilience training has the potential to enhance adaptiveness and improve quality of life. This study aims to develop resilience training suitable for first-year medical students and assess the efficacy of this training. This is a quasi-experimental study, with pre- and post-test design conducted in October to November 2022. We first screened 120 first-year medical students of Hasanuddin University who completed the pre-survey online questionnaire consisting of demographic data, 21-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21), 25-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC 25), and World Health Organisation Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF). Using consecutive sampling, students who consented to participate attended a four-session resilience training programme and then completed the post-survey questionnaire. We analysed the data using Microsoft Excel and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24.0 with paired t-test, independent t-test, and Pearson correlation. We first delivered resilience training to 30 medical students, 25 of them finished all sessions. More subjects were female, aged 18 years. Mostly, they were capable of building relationships and had enough financial and familial support. At first, they mostly had mild depression, severe anxiety, moderate to severe stress, low resilience, and good quality of life. Stress level decreased significantly in intervention group (±26%) than in control group (±6%), while the resilience and quality of life scores tend to get increased (±3% improvement). Thus, we can conclude that resilience training decreases stress levels and has the potential to improve quality of life and resilience scores, thereby enhancing students’ study process.

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