Resilience in Pakistani undergraduate nursing students: An exploratory descriptive study

The challenging nature of nursing education necessitates resilience building among forming years of undergraduate nursing students to help them overcome adversities, achieve desired educational outcomes, and improve their mental well-being. Therefore, this study aimed to explore resilience strengthening and building among forming years (freshmen and sophomore) Pakistani nursing students admitted into a 4-years BSN program. An Exploratory Descriptive Qualitative Design (EDQ) was employed to collect data from first-year and second-year BSN students enrolled in a nursing college in Islamabad, Pakistan. The study findings elicited that freshmen and sophomore BSN students experience various educational, personal, and emotional hardships, and utilize coping mechanisms to achieve academic success. The study findings also unfolded students' need for learning effective coping mechanisms and developing life skills to build and strengthen resilience and improve their mental well-being. Nurse educators can utilize the findings to design an educational intervention to engender resilience education during the forming years of the BSN program in Pakistan. & COPY; 2023 Organization for Associate Degree Nursing. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.