Resilience Equine-Assisted Learning to Reduce Perceived Stress in Baccalaureate

Abstract

Nursing students across the country are struggling to cope with chronic stress, burnout and decreased resilience. They are constantly juggling between maintaining rigorous studying habits, implementing recently learned skills in clinical practice, caring for patients, and balancing a social life outside of school (Sanad, 2019). Unfortunately, this stress does not diminish with earning a “Bachelor's of Science in Nursing” degree (Kelly et al., 2021). Daily, nurses are confronted with human suffering, decreased resources, and an increased workload. Given these working conditions, nurses often find themselves enduring “high degrees of stress, anxiety, depressive symptoms, job burnout, and unsatisfactory quality of life” (Marchand & Sullivan-Sakaeda, 2022, p.1). However, this vicious cycle of overwhelming stress and burnout can hopefully be broken with the implementation of resilience training. This study aims to explore the changes in perceived stress for baccalaureate nursing students following the implementation of a six-week Resilience Equine-Assisted Learning (REAL) intervention.