Spirituality as a Component of Student Resilience and Well-Being in Standards 2025.

Résumé

The Accreditation Council for Pharmaceutical Education Standards 2025 places increased emphasis on student success, resilience, and well-being (Standard 4). Resilience is often measured as a generalized trait; however, a holistic, comprehensive approach is needed to examine it within the context of students' belief systems, community connections, and spiritual resources. As pharmacy programs prepare students to deliver whole-person care to patients, they must also model and provide whole-person care to their learners by considering their spiritual health. In 2 posters presented at the 2022 American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Midyear Clinical Meeting, we assessed well-being, resilience, and spirituality among health professional students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Student resilience stayed the same during this period, while nonorganized religious activity and intrinsic religious motivation also remained consistent. We believe that student spirituality may have helped to buffer decreases in student resilience. This observation aligns with a meta-analysis of 34 observational studies reporting a moderate positive correlation between spirituality, religiosity, and resilience. Thus, we propose that student resilience and well-being be examined from a multidimensional perspective, including the impact of student spirituality when pharmacy schools implement Standards 2025 from a curricular, programmatic, and assessment perspective. We propose strategies that include the regular assessment of student resilience, well-being, and spirituality; integration of spirituality into didactic and experiential curricula; and development of inclusive religious accommodations to foster belonging. Incorporating these strategies would align with Standards 2025 and ensure that pharmacy schools model their educational framework to address whole-person care not only for patients but also for our student pharmacists.