Estrategias de autocuidado en estudiantes de décimo ciclo de las carreras de Psicología Clínica, Educativa y Social de la Facultad de Psicología de la Universidad de Cuenca, periodo marzo – agosto 2022

Abstract

Self-care plays a very important role in individual’s life, for this reason the strategies that are applied on this play a fundamental role since they are activities employed to improve and care for both physical and emotional health. Professionals in Psychology, who are constantly in contact with different situations that involve people's emotional problems, are a vulnerable population to have negative impacts in their health. Therefore, this is why it is crucial to emphasize the undergraduate academic training; specially, the situation of psychology students who are in the transition from the training context to the professional context which is involved in preprofessional practicum. The objective of this work was to determine the self-care strategies presented in students of the tenth semester of the Clinical, Educational, and Social Psychology majors of the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Cuenca, as well as the perception and importance attributed to them. The study is a phenomenological research with a qualitative method, it was carried out at the University of Cuenca from March to August of 2022. Nine university students from the tenth semester of the Clinical, Educational, and Social Psychology careers participated in the study. A semi-structured interview was applied based on the three established categories: conception of self-care, self-care strategies, and role attributed to self-care. Through the execution of the investigation it was possible to determine that the participants consider that self-care and the use of self-care strategies are essential and a priority for the training of the psychologist. In the same way, it was possible to determine that all the study participants used self-care strategies, being the most used; taking care of the body, healthy activities of distraction, cultivating a support network, maintaining mindfulness, setting limits, personal therapy, and refocusing on the satisfactions of work.