Developing a personalized self-care curriculum for graduate students in the health sciences

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the Pitt Personal Wellness Program, three 1-hour workshops that were integrated into the first-semester curriculum of five health sciences graduate programs. The workshops were designed as a personalized education approach to promote self-care and well-being. Of the 156 graduate students who participated in the Pitt Personal Wellness Program, 99 (65%) completed online questionnaires regarding stress and coping at three time points across a 14 week period: before the program, and after the second and third workshops. Graduate students reported significant decreases in perceived stress and number of stressful situations across the three time points. Students who reported a previous history of mental health counseling demonstrated steeper declines in perceived stress across Times 1 and 2, and reported significantly higher use of coping strategies across the three time points. Racially minoritized students and those reporting more financial struggles also reported significant declines in stress and number of stressors across Times 1 and 2. The Pitt Personal Wellness Program was acceptable to graduate students and a promising program for further dissemination and study.