The relationship between spirituality, resilience, and perceived stress among social work students: implications for educators

ABSTRACT

The nature of stress social work students experience, and the ways they cope have been studied since the 1990s. Recent academic efforts and research have increasingly focused on the need for self-care among students. However, studies related to the role of student resilience and spirituality amidst stress have been limited. The available studies point to the resilient capacities of students and the need for recognizing student agency. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine stress experienced by social work students and its relationship to their resilience and spirituality. The study participants (n = 80) were drawn from social work students at two public universities in the U.S. Participants completed an online survey consisting of the Perceived Stress Scale, Connor-Davidson’s Resilience scale, Spiritual Well-Being Scale, and demographic questions. The results indicated that 51.2% of the participants experienced high levels of stress with the major stressors being academic, finances, family, and mental health. The results also indicated an inverse weak correlation between resilience and perceived stress, and a positive weak correlation between spiritual well-being and perceived stress (p < 0.01). Implications of the study to educators and suggestions for future research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Perceived stress
• stressors
• resilience
• spiritual well-being
• social work students

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).