Personal enablers of mental resilience in pharmacy
Work among healthcare professionals before COVID-19 identified resilient characteristics:24:
- Optimism, such as taking a positive approach and looking for solutions
- Adaptability, such as responding to changing or difficult situations and being able to progress through this
- Initiative, which would allow resilient individuals to anticipate situations in advance and know how they would respond
- Organisational skills, such as time management and workload prioritisation
- Humour and the ability to laugh together to get through challenges
Taking time out
Research among Serbian community pharmacists has highlighted the importance of a programme of relaxation training in managing stress and anxiety.27 An 8-week course using relaxation exercises to induce muscular relaxation, feelings of warmth and slower breathing significantly reduced anxiety levels.27
Although little work has been done on personal and mental resilience in pharmacists during COVID-19, there may be some learnings from research among the general population, which found the following were linked to greater mental resilience during lockdown:28
- Spending at least 10 minutes outdoors more days per week
- Undertaking more daily exercise
- Getting more sleep
- Having greater perceived support from family and friends.
Staying strong – Building resilience in pharmacy
Pharmacy teams have been on the frontline during the coronavirus pandemic. This has had a big impact on their mental health and wellbeing and GSK wants to help. We are sharing the lessons learned from coping with COVID-19 and exploring how they could help pharmacists build mental resilience for the future.
How COVID-19 has impacted pharmacy
Pharmacists and their teams were on the frontline during the pandemic. Discover more about how rising to the COVID-19 challenge impacted every aspect of life for pharmacy teams.
A crucial time of change in pharmacy
The pandemic highlighted the vital role pharmacies play in their communities, find out more about what this means for the future.
Organisational enablers of mental resilience in pharmacy
Discover how making smart organisational changes to the way you work can help to improve resilience for your pharmacy team.
GSK support in mental resilience
Discover more about how GSK Consumer Healthcare is working with expert partners to support the mental health and wellbeing of pharmacy teams.
Tips to help build mental resilience
Download expert tips to help support mental health and wellbeing for you and your team – now and in the future.
