Abstract

VAN DER MERWE, Anke; BARNES, Roline  and  NEL, Mariette. Becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable: The tale of adaptability. SAJPHYS [online]. 2023, vol.79, n.1, pp.1-7. ISSN 2410-8219.  http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/sajp.v79i1.1889.

BACKGROUND: With the ever-changing healthcare environment and impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on tertiary education, healthcare students need to constantly adapt their approach to learning, clinical practice and well-being. Adaptive performance is therefore vital OBJECTIVES: To investigate the adaptive performance of final year physiotherapy students at the University of the Free State METHOD: A quantitative descriptive study was performed. All consenting final year undergraduate physiotherapy students registered at the University of the Free State in 2021 were approached for inclusion. The short 55-item I-ADAPT measurement was distributed electronically to all possible participants RESULTS: The response rate was 28.5% (n = 8). Descriptive statistics, namely frequencies and percentages for categorical data and medians and percentages for numerical data were calculated. The dimensions related to handling work stress (50%), uncertainty (62.2%) and creativity (64.0%) scored the lowest. Emotional response to stress (62.5%) and frustration in response to unpredictable situations (62.5%) was reported CONCLUSION: Uncertainty and unpredictability are inevitable for healthcare students. Stress management and emotional intelligence development are advised for inclusion in undergraduate physiotherapy programmes CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: A need for curricular evaluation to ensure students are equipped with stress management and emotional intelligence skills is proposed

Keywords : adaptive performance; undergraduate physiotherapy; I-ADAPT measurement; healthcare education; graduate attributes.

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