Resilience, Anxiety and Depression in Doctor of Physical Therapy Students: A Preliminary Investigation

The purpose of this study was to assess resiliency, anxiety and depression across 3 doctor of physical therapy (DPT) cohorts in the United States.

This study was a cross-sectional survey that included a voluntary online survey containing questions on demographics, Connor Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC 25), and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Descriptive statistics, Student's t-test (two-tailed), X2 analysis and Fisher's exact test were used for data analysis. ANOVA analysis was performed to compare three or more group means on a single response variable.

Of the 202 DPT students who were invited to participate in this survey, 155 responded for a response rate of 77%. Of the 155 students who completed the survey, 63% were positive for symptoms of anxiety (mean, SD: 9.3, 4.0), while only 20% were positive for symptoms of depression (5.0, 3.0). Overall, 77% of the students had low resilience scores (72.0, 12.0), defined as a score of < 82 on the CD-RISC.

Lower levels of resilience are associated with elevated psychological symptoms in DPT students. Future research is needed to understand the generalizability of these findings and to determine whether adding resilience training to the formal curriculum will improve the psychological health of students.