Promoting academic resilience through peer support in a new pre-registration nursing programme

Abstract

Nursing students can experience increased levels of stress while studying for their registration. It is acknowledged that higher education institutions should incorporate mechanisms to try to reduce these stress levels and build up resilience towards the difficult situations students may encounter during their studies. A bespoke method was created within a new part-time 4-year pre-registration nursing programme to support part-time junior (part 1) nursing students by implementing action learning sets within the programme. These sessions were delivered by part-time senior (part 3) nursing students who had already gone through similar experiences. Both the junior and senior students reported that they had gained benefits from this innovation, increasing their confidence and improving their ability to cope with some of the stressors of the programme. Building the resilience of nursing students within this pilot project was positively evaluated and could be developed further into other nursing programmes. This part-time programme was developed to retain nurses in Wales and was aimed at healthcare support workers with prior experience of providing the fundamentals of nursing care within local health boards.

Academic resilience in nusing students: a concept analysis

“…(2) Family factors: Literature has shown that high levels of family relationship satisfaction [ 3 ], effective family communication mode [ 57 ] and strong family support [ 38 ] contribute to the improvement of academic resilience. (3) Peer group factors: Peer support [ 38 , 58 ] and good peer’s interpersonal relationship [ 3 ] can also promote the enhancement of nursing students’ academic resilience.…”

Experiences of Nursing Students Regarding Challenges and Support for Resilience during Clinical Education: A Qualitative Study

“…However, adequate support is equally indispensable for developing resilience [ 16 ]. A supportive learning environment characterized by effective supervision, constructive feedback, and a culture of collaboration strengthens coping mechanisms, enhances learning experiences, and contributes to the development of resilient and proficient practitioners [ 17 , 18 , 19 ]. The initial critical stage in nursing students’ transition into nursing has garnered extensive attention, particularly in clinical education [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ].…”