Abstract
Purpose: Audiologists face occupational stressors that put them at risk for burnout, which can impact personal well-being and lead to poor patient care. Resilience building can mitigate the impact of occupational stressors. The purpose of this study was to explore audiologists' awareness and use of various resilience-building strategies. Method: In this qualitative study, 12 audiologists completed a virtual interview focused on occupational stressors and resilience building. Results: Five of the 12 participants (42%) stated they understood the term “resilience building” when queried at the start of the interview. When provided with clarification, many limited their commentary to specific examples provided by the interviewer, without expanding their responses to more diverse resilience-building strategies. Participants described the ways they used strategies proactively to mitigate the long-term impact of stress (sleep, exercise, boundaries) and reactively for managing acute stress (psychotherapy), with some strategies used both proactively and reactively across participants (connections, mindfulness/meditation). Conclusions: All participants described using at least one strategy to combat occupational stressors, but there did not appear to be a clear understanding of the holistic nature of resilience building or an overall strategy to apply diverse strategies to build resilience. Barriers to the use of resilience-building strategies included exhaustion, lack of time, and motivation. Gaps in awareness and application suggest audiologists may benefit from education on resilience building as a holistic approach to combating occupational stress and decreasing burnout.
Published Version
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