Sources of Resilience in Frontline Health Professionals during COVID-19

Background: While the challenges for psychological well-being for Australian healthcare workers have been documented, there has been a dearth of qualitative research on the sources of resilience that sustained workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study identified sources of resilience that clinicians used to cope with frontline challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 frontline health professionals, across five Australian hospitals, between October 2020 and April 2021. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, and the results were analysed using thematic analysis based on a phenomenological approach. Results: Three sources of resilience were identified by respondents: personal, relational, and organisational. A positive mindset, sense of purpose, and self-care behaviours emerged as key sources of personal resilience. Teamwork, altruism, and social support from family and friends contributed to relational resilience. Leadership, effective communication, and effective implementation of COVID-19 policies were associated with resilience at the organisational level. Frontline healthcare workers also voiced the need for the implementation of further strategies to support personal resilience whilst nurturing resilience within clinical teams and across entire healthcare organisations. Conclusions: Trust in healthcare systems, organisation leaders, colleagues, and personal support teams was an overarching theme supporting resilience.

A social perspective on resilience: social support and dyadic coping in teacher training

Stress in teaching and teacher training is a well-known issue and stress management during teacher training may not only be affected by individual coping efforts, but also determined by private and work-related networks the individual is integrated in. In that regard, our article aims firstly to identify sources of social support in the German teacher training system and secondly to analyze interdependencies in dyadic coping interactions based on the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model. On the basis of questionnaire data from 307 German trainees and qualified teachers from vocational and general schools, we found that mentors, partners, fellow trainees, colleagues at school, parents, and good friends were named as the most supportive reference persons during teacher training. In a follow-up survey, data from 49 sources of support were obtained, which could be assigned to the corresponding (trainee) teachers (in the sense of support recipients). These dyads thus form the basis for the analysis of dyadic coping interdependencies. The results of the moderator analyses show, among other things, that support recipients who prefer the coping strategy palliative emotion regulation tend to react rather sensitively to contrary coping strategies of the source of support with regard to their stress symptoms. Social interactions in this respect can represent both protective as well as risk factors. Therefore, a system of complex social interdependencies must be considered when analyzing relational resilience among prospective teachers.

Preparing for Future Adversities: Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic in Australia for Promoting Relational Resilience in Families

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has placed considerable pressure on families, testing the quality of relationships and the strength of social support within and beyond the family network. However, little is known about the pre-pandemic factors that predict family relational resilience and social functioning during times of natural disaster or global crisis. Here we use data from one of Australia's longest running studies of social and emotional development to examine the nature and timing of possible relational and social support intervention aimed at preparing families for future adversities.Methods: Data were from the Australian Temperament Project Generation 3 (ATPG3) Study, a population representative three generation cohort study of families established in 1983. A subset of Generation 2 parents completed a COVID-19 specific survey in May-September 2020 (502 parents of 871 children; 60% mothers; 37–38 years). These participants had completed the Quality of Relationships Inventory to assess social support during young adulthood, at 23–24 years (2006) and 27–28 years (2010), before next generation conception. Participants had also completed the Maternity Social Support Scale 1 year postpartum for each child born across the ATPG3 assessment period (2012–2019). In 2020, during the height of the Australian lockdowns, participants rated the quality of their relationships with their partners, children and broader family and friends, in addition to social support within and extended beyond their family.Results: Pre-pandemic partner support was associated with partner relationship quality during the pandemic (β = 0.22). Pre-pandemic support from friends was associated with relationship quality with other family and friends during the pandemic (β = 0.12 – 0.18). Pre-pandemic support (from partner, family and friends) was consistently associated with social support within families during the pandemic (β = 0.11 – 0.21). Pre-pandemic support from friends was also associated with family support extended to others within their local community during the pandemic (β = 0.12 – 0.13).Conclusions: Strengthening supportive relationships during major life transitions, prior to the start of family life and in early parenthood, may have long-term and intergenerational benefits years into the future for both families and communities. This may promote resilience during future crises and other more normative stressful life events.

Tracking Thought Squirrels: A Relational Cultural Theoretical Approach to Counseling Couples

Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT) describes the process of connection and disconnection that is inevitable in relationship. Understanding how we can navigate and recover from connection and disconnection in our relationships with loved ones serves to develop relational resilience. In this article, the author will share an approach to couples communication, grounded in RCT, which may help increase the ability for couples to communicate their moments of connection and disconnection to one another to foster relational resilience. Two case examples are shared that exemplify the step by step process of incorporating this relational cultural approach in practice.

A Resilience and Innovative Personal Potential of Students

Aim and problem. The article is devoted to the problem of the correlation between the resilience and the innovative personal potential on the example of a student sample. The authors describe resilience as a dynamic system of individual psychological qualities, life meanings and personal relations, which determine the specifics of its response to changing conditions. Methodology. An empirical study was carried out on a sample of students of the Novosibirsk State Technical University (N = 164) using the psychological tests of a resilience by M. Ungar and A. V. Makhnach, test of an innovative personal potential by Yu. A. Vlasenko, V. K. Kalin, test of a self-esteem of an innovative traits by N. M. Lebedeva, A. N. Tatarko. Results of research. Correlation analysis using Spearman’s Rs criterion showed the correlation between the integral indicator of an innovative personal potential with the general level of a resilience, relational resilience (test ARM), self-efficacy, coping and adaptation (A. V. Makhnach’s test), as well as the presence of many correlations between a resilience and innovative qualities. As a result of the regression analysis, it was found that the innovative personal potential of university students depends on the general level of a resilience and coping and adaptation skills, and the self-perception of innovativeness depends on the general level of a resilience. In a conclusion authors confirm the correlation between the resilience and the innovative personal potential of students.