Coping skills
Coping strategies are designed to change the person’s response to stressful life events (e.g., study- related stressors), so that they have less impact (as opposed to changing the stressors themselves).
There are many techniques that fall within this category, such as time management and conflict resolution, but almost all are characterized by some kind of cognitive restructuring (such as changing one’s job expectations, reinterpreting other people’s behavior, and imagining new goals and next steps).
Interventions to increase the perceived control
Definition
One important factor associated with increased stress and burnout is the perceptions of past, present, and future control over specific stressors (e.g., the number of exams, the amount of homework, etc.). Coping skills trainings can aim to increase the level of perceived control, in order to reduce burnout.
How it works
A program aimed to increase the perceived control can be implemented both face to face and on-line. It generally consists of educational modules (where information about stress factors and the role of perceived control in reducing stress is provided) and individual homework (where you can practice, applying the present control in specific stressful situation identified in your everyday life).
The information provided will generally cover topics such as common medical students’ stressors and outcomes; past, present and future control of life events and the ability to influence them; how you can avoid pitfalls in implementing present control; techniques to continue developing these skills.
Based on these newly developed abilities, you will be able to approach differently specific stressors. For example, instead of thinking that the number of exams cannot be changed by you, you might find control, by focusing on the experience of learning for the exams. For example, you could decide to make the studying process more enjoyable (e.g., be studying in a coffee shop).
Resources for self-directed practice: A book chapter on regulation of stress.
Interventions to improve emotional competence
Definition
An intervention program of four 2-hour one-on-one sessions focused on the primary emotional and cognitive components of anxiety. The aim is to help students develop coping skills before anxiety takes over, in order to be able to defeat false beliefs and promote positive thinking, when dealing with exams.
How it works
The program focuses on your intolerance of uncertainty, erroneous beliefs about worry, poor problem orientation, and cognitive avoidance.
The theoretical justification for the treatment is that the anxiety produced by upcoming exams and other required academic work is driven by specific anxious thoughts (e.g., fearful thoughts revolving around symptoms or stemming from situations that provoke anxiety at the time of taking exams) and by the lack of self-confidence, defined as a reduced belief in one’s ability to successfully carry out certain activities.
One example of an anxious thought that you might have before an exam is: “It is inconceivable that someone in the same circumstances as me could pass this kind of exam”.
To control the anxiety, you could pass through a three-step process:
IMMAGINE
You could then use activity schedules and records of dysfunctional thoughts to first locate and identify anxious thoughts and then to develop the skills needed to examine them and to formulate the alternatives to be tested in subsequent behavioral assignments.
Resources for self-directed practice: