Nursing students strengthening resiliency through educator relationships: A basic qualitative study

Abstract

<p>Nursing school attrition rates are steadily on the rise. Attrition rates are related to high course failure, program drop-out, and burnout. Resiliency is a critical quality that baccalaureate nursing students must attain to cope with nursing school stressors successfully. Nursing student resiliency is in the infancy stage of research investigation; however, literature shows the nurse educator-nursing student's influence on student resiliency; how do senior-level baccalaureate nursing students strengthen resiliency through the nurse educator-nursing student (NE-NS) relationship? The nursing student perspective is often overlooked; therefore, this dissertation focused on bringing forth the perspective of nursing students. Senior-level nursing students have 2 to 3 years to cope with the stressors of nursing school; therefore, they offer invaluable insight. The sample was seven senior-level baccalaureate nursing students who currently had a part-time or full-time enrollment status, fluent in the English language, were 18 years of or older, had positive and negative interactions with nurse educators, and had experience coping with the stressors of nursing school. All seven semi-structured interviews were uploaded into the software MAXQDA 2020 for data analysis. Thematic coding was applied, which yielded four themes and five subthemes. The themes emerged were resiliency, NE-NS relationship, NE attitude, and classroom coping activities. The subthemes were personal motivation, resiliency skillset, ideal NE-NS relationship, role modeling qualities to mimic, NE verbal persuasion, and NE pearls of wisdom. The participants discussed how each theme and subtheme was central to strengthening resiliency. While verbal persuasion and NE pearls of wisdom were the most desired method for strengthening resiliency, it was noted that the NE-NS relationship must be established as positive first.</p>