Health professionals´ perspective on individual resilience promotors - a qualitative study

• Autor(a) principal: Costa, Ana Eduarda Leite
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/24900
• topic: Mental health; Resilience; Healthcare workers; CoVID-19 pandemic; Qualitative study

Healthcare professionals are a population susceptible to being affected physically and psychologically during health crises, such as the recent CoVID-19 pandemic. Resilience can be defined as the ability to overcome adversity and has been pointed out in the literature as a possible protective factor against psychological distress in crisis situations. Thus, based on the experiences of the CoVID-19 pandemic, this study aims to understand the perspectives of Portuguese healthcare professionals regarding the factors that reinforce their individual resilience. To achieve the aim of the study qualitative research was conducted. Interviews were performed with 25 participants who were recruited using the non-probability purposive sampling method. The interviews were analyzed based on thematic analysis using WebQDA software. The factors that appear to have mitigated the impact of the pandemic on healthcare professionals include social support from family and friends, organizational support from leaders and colleagues, involvement in well-being-promoting activities, personal skills, ability to learn from experience, implementation of measures to increase their safety, and their professional experiences prior to the pandemic. The results obtained allowed the development of strategic guidelines for health services to promote the resilience of healthcare professionals. These results are of high relevance to occupational therapists, who might have a role in promoting resilience through engaging in meaningful occupations, which they see as a natural health-promoting mechanism.