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

The Accreditation Council for Pharmaceutical Education (ACPE) 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 two posters presented at the 2022 ASHP 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 non-organized 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.