A Developmental Evaluation of a Psychological Skills Training Program with Doctor of Physical Therapy Students

Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) first-year students have reported high levels of depression, anxiety, stress, and burnout during their studies. In 2022, 77% of physical therapists working in practice reported a lack of work-life balance as the primary reason for leaving. Despite this, only a handful of interventions have been developed to support DPT students well-being. Drawing from this literature, the 10-week psychological skills training (PST) program, Rise Through Purpose (RTP), aimed to support first-year DPT students at South College with psychological skills that contributed to developing resilience and thriving. The purpose of this study was to design and evaluate the RTP program using developmental evaluation (DE) procedures. DPT students resilience and thriving was measured pre-program and post-program across a summer control cohort and winter intervention cohort. DPT students in the winter intervention cohort also completed a mid-program survey to collect feedback on the RTP program. Results revealed that DPT students resilience in the winter intervention cohort significantly increased pre-post program with this difference being significantly higher than the summer control cohort. DPT students valued podcasts and supplemental resources the most. However, students found it difficult to find the time to participate fully in the RTP program due to the increased workload and stress from the accelerated DPT program. While most of the RTP program was implemented as intended, feedback resulted in DE changes, such as the addition of supplemental resources and a DPT student journal, as well as changes to the RTP website and the frequency of reminders. This is the first study to conduct a DE on a PST program to develop resilience and thriving for DPT students. The study provides compelling evidence that students can benefit from acquiring psychological skills to cope with stressors and improve their well-being during their DPT program. This study encourages future PST programs to consider collecting feedback before, during, and after a program is delivered and to work collaboratively with participants to co-create a program.