Hope, optimism, gratitude, and wellbeing among health professional minority college students

Abstract

Objectives: To (1) describe the level of hope, optimism, and gratitude in a sample of minority health professional college students. (2) To examine the association between hope, optimism, and gratitude with wellbeing domains. Participants: One hundred and thirty-two (n = 132) college students from the Nursing, Medicine, and Allied Health programs. Methods: Cross-sectional survey study assessed wellbeing across the five domains of positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. Results: Mean and Standard Deviation on hope, optimism, and gratitude were 50.2 ± 5.6; 21.7 ± 4.34; and 36.3 ± 5.35, respectively. Hope, optimism, and gratitude were positively associated with domains of wellbeing, controlling for gender and age. Conclusion: Students maintained a positive outlook in life. Hopeful, op6timistic, and grateful students experienced positive emotion, were more engaged in their daily activities, had more supportive relationships, had a better sense of direction in life, and more often accomplished their goals. Interpretations and future directions are discussed.

Keywords:

• Ethnic minority college students
• gratitude
• hope
• optimism
• wellbeing

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science.

Additional information

Funding

FundingThis research was partly supported by NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) UCLA CTSI Grant Number UL1TR001881.