Coping Strategies Used by Occupational Therapy Students During Fieldwork: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

This exploratory study examined the coping strategies and perceptions of 24 graduate students in occupational therapy who were participating in their second Level II fieldwork experience. The instruments used were the revised Ways of Coping Checklist (WCCL) (Vitaliano, Russo, Carr, Maiuro, & Becker, 1985) and a questionnaire developed by the authors. The results showed that of the five coping scales of the WCCL, the students used the Problem-Focused and Seeks Social Support strategies more than the Blamed Self, Wishful Thinking, and Avoidance strategies. Most of the students perceived the fieldwork experience as important, controllable, and stressful, but not disruptive to their lives.

Relative/Proportional Scoring of the Ways of Coping Checklist: Is it Advantageous or Artificial

“…Proportional scoring of the WCC has been used in studies oE (a) How medical professionals cope with job-related stressors (Mitchell & Kampfe, 1990;; (b) group differences in coping based on gender (Long, 19891, age (Feifel & Strack, 1989), and HIV status (Nicholson & Long, 1990); (c) the well-being of parents with mentally handicapped children (Frey, Greenberg, & Fewell, 1989;Sloper, Knussen, Turner, & Cunningham, 199 1); (d) the academic achievement and social life ) of children with Down's syndrome; (e) reactions to medically diagnosed infertility (Stanton, Texnnen, Affleck, & Mendola, 1992); (f) "Optimal adjustment" of normal adolescents (Jorgensen & Dusek, 1990); and, (g) key tests of the theoretical arrangement of psychological processes (Smith, Pope, Rhodewalt, & Poulton, 1989;Vitaliano, DeWolfe, Maiuro, Russo, & Katon, 1990;Williams, Wiebe, & Smith, 1992). In each of these studies, the results were confined to proportional coping scores with little if any details given about the raw scores.…”

Perceptions of stress, time management and coping strategies of speech pathology students on clinical placement

“…The majority of students reported experiencing moderate levels of stress and therefore were unlikely to experience the negative consequences of high stress during clinical placements reported in the literature (Anderson, 1988;Mitchell & Kampfe, 1990). In the current study there were however, several students who scored in the high stress range indicating the clinical placements were very stressful for a small number of students.…”

“…In order to achieve this students are required to engage in both personal and professional growth. Not surprisingly, it is well known that clinical education experiences can be stressful and anxiety provoking for students (Chan, Carter, & McAllister, 1994;DiGiacomo & Adamson, 2001;Hojat, Gonnella, Erdmann, & Vogel, 2003;Mitchell & Kampfe, 1990).…”

“…Mitchell and Kampfe (1990) found that high stress levels on clinical placements affected students' effectiveness, productivity, attitudes, professional behaviour and job satisfaction. Anderson (1988) suggests that anxiety may distract or inhibit students' learning.…”

‘I'm allowed to experiment’: the role of people with psychiatric disorders in facilitating students' learning

“…Within the fieldwork learning context, patients or clients have an important role to play (Mitchell and Kampfe, 1990;Shepherd, 1991). They serve as learning resources (that is, a source of learning and skill acquisition for students), and as demonstration models (that is, a means whereby students demonstrate their competencies to supervisors for the purposes of evaluation).…”